


asthma makes you boring

by maternaljoke



Category: DreamSMP, SMPEarth, Sleepyboisinc, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, London, London Underground, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Pills, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Vomiting, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, Wilbur Soot is Not Okay, Wilbur Soot-centric, Wilbur's a Bad Brother, it sounds worse than it is, suicide ideation, tags will be added as fic is updated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maternaljoke/pseuds/maternaljoke
Summary: wilbur was born and raised in london.he never planned to leave.
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 200
Kudos: 617





	1. jubilee line

**Author's Note:**

> stream [Your City Gave Me Asthma](https://open.spotify.com/album/1ZSC5ULnqANluf9QT32hJW)!!
> 
> tracks have been moved around for story purposes.
> 
> i have no plans to write anything of a graphic nature with any of the boys. i'm going to respect their established boundaries <3
> 
> also!! i just want to clarify: this fic has NO major character death. it can be seen as that in some parts so i want to clarify thats not the case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy is staring at the light with wide, glossy eyes. His shoulders shake, no longer having the hands of a familiar blond to hold them steady. A comforting weight from behind.
> 
> He’s never been this scared of the train.
> 
> He should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate to see you leaving  
> fate worse than dying  
> your city gave me asthma  
> so that's why i'm fucking leaving  
> and your water gave me cancer  
> and the pavement hurt my feelings  
> ======  
> wilbur soot - jubilee line
> 
> cw // semi-graphic suicide

_I’m sorry._

\--

It’s loud.

It’s loud, yet deafeningly silent. 

The creaking of the train aches and groans. The taste of smoke, copper and lead rests heavy on his tongue. 

His right palm is warm, intertwined with a smaller, shaky one. His left is still and silent in the cold.

His nose stings. His whole face does. He can’t hear the ringing in his ears. All he can hear is the footsteps and harsh groans of passersby, the churning of machinery and shaky breaths from beside him.

\--

_I wanted to wait for you. I wanted to wait for all of you. You’re all I have left. I didn’t want to leave you behind._

_I can’t wait anymore._

\--

The train tracks light up with a golden glow.

He looks to his right. Tommy and Techno. Tommy is staring at the light with wide, glossy eyes. His shoulders shake, no longer having the hands of a familiar blond to hold them steady. A comforting weight from behind.

He’s never been this scared of the train.

He should be.

Techno remains intelligently neutral. His face doesn’t twitch. His eyes are almost as cold as the tendrils in Wilbur’s chest. They both burn with apathy.

A set of footsteps speed up from behind them.

\--

_I don’t plan on returning. I hope you’ll follow me._

_You know where I am._

\--

His gaze flickers to meet Wilbur’s over Tommy’s head. 

A silent agreement is made. Wilbur can see it in Techno’s empty gaze. He feels it in his own. 

The crowd parts. They stay still.

Tommy stiffens.

\--

_Take care of yourselves. Regardless of what you choose._

_I’m going to miss you three. You’re my children. You always will be, no matter where I am._

\--

The train moves forward. The man reaches the tube line. 

The train keeps moving. 

It creaks and groans under its own weight, too heavy for its own shoulders to balance. The weight of its own sins sink down on it.

Techno doesn’t blink. Tommy shuts his eyes.

Wilbur’s sting.

\--

_To Techno, take care of your brothers. You’ve always been good to them, ever since you were kids. I’ve seen it time and time again. Take care of yourself too. I know, it’s a lot for you to do, but you might begin to like it. Who knows._

\--

There’s a scream. Wilbur prays for the relief of silence.

Instead, there’s groans. Groans and sighs, bitter mumbling. A weighted white noise. The train parks. The crowd moves forward and slithers onto the cart, a dark wave of apathetic smoke.

Wilbur presses his tongue onto the roof of his mouth. He can’t taste any of it. Just copper and lead.

\--

_To Tommy, focus. Focus on school. Focus on work. Focus on your friends. I know not your brothers never make you do any of it. It’s up to you. I believe in you. You’ll be glad you did once you have the choice. I know I’m old and lame, but trust me._

\--

Tommy moves forward. Techno pulls him back. “It's not our time yet.”

Wilbur wants to laugh at that.

\--

_To Wilbur, you’ve been hurt the most by this city._

\--

Tommy tugs on his hand. “Wil?”

Wilbur rubs his eye dry with his free hand. His other is hidden under his bangs. He looks down at Tommy.

“Yeah?”

\--

_Yet, I fear you’re the most likely to stay._

\--

“Are you okay?”

\--

_I don’t want you to be left alone, and I know, despite what you insist,_

\--

“‘m fine, Toms. Eyes just sting. Smoke and all that.”

Tommy shrugs and goes back to the train tracks. He flinches at the bloodied corpse the workers pull up onto the stretcher.

The train, almost painfully, rolls away. The rails are darkened when it’s gone. 

Wilbur can’t taste copper anymore. All he tastes is lead.

\--

_you don’t want to either._

* * *

“Wilbur!”

Wilbur startles up. Techno.

“Wil, we’re at our stop. We gotta go.” Technos hand slides off his shoulder and into his coat pocket. Wilbur’s grasps at the cold.

He stands from his seat. The trolley’s almost completely empty, with one or two hunched over stragglers. It’s dark and cloudy outside. It’s going to storm soon.

He heaves up his guitar case and heads out with Techno. Tommy’s already standing there in the rain, his hair slick against his head. His umbrella is closed against his side. Wilbur thinks his eyes look glossy, but as the trolley closes and drives off, he realizes it’s just the light from the windows.

“C’mon. They might not let us in if we get back too late.”

Techno heads off, pulling his coat hood over his head. Tommy hands Wilbur their umbrella. Wilbur hands Tommy his guitar case.

He doesn’t feel any drier.

The rain against the umbrella is an itching white noise. It clatters like hail against the empty bucket that is Wilbur’s mind. 

Tommy isn’t his usual self, jumping into puddles and getting the bottoms of his jeans soaked with dirty rain water. He’s silent. He looks cold, with the lack of wind-induced color on his face and the stillness of his body. The lack of shivers. The emptiness in his eyes.

He expected this, but it hurts nonetheless. He wonders if dad would’ve done something different.

Tommy looks up at Wilbur. “Wil?”

“Yeah, Tommy?”

He looks frail. Wilbur gently pries the guitar case from his fingers. Like taking a necklace from a corpse’s neck, it’s laughably easy. His hand doesn’t even move position.

“Is that man going to be okay?”

“What man?”

“That man from the train.”

“Oh.”

Wilbur doesn’t know what to say. That seems to be enough for Tommy.

“I miss dad.”

“Yeah?”

\--

_I love you. All of you._

_I hope to see you soon._

\--

“Go catch up with Techno.” Wilbur hands Tommy the umbrella. He’s quick to run up to Techno’s side. He drags the umbrella behind him. 

A day ago, he would’ve tugged at Techno’s sleeve and asked him some random question. Techno would make up some random, probably surprisingly close to the truth answer, while Phil and Wilbur would stay behind, watching the interaction with fondness.

Wilbur would make some jokingly mean remark, Phil would elbow Wilbur’s side, Wilbur would snarkily go “sorry, _dad_ ,” and Phil would laugh and tug Wilbur closer to his side.

Now, Tommy’s silent. Techno doesn’t have a surprisingly close to the truth answer, 

Wilbur’s side is cold.

His mouth tastes like death.


	2. saline solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looks like a newly killed ghost, desperate yet accepting, pale and knotted. His hair is a mess, falling over his eyes and forehead in messy, untamable curls. His eyes are red around the corners and glossed over, not just with sleep, and his eyes are purple under the bottom eyelids.
> 
> He looks scarily alive.
> 
> For a moment, he envies Tommy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think ive made my choice  
> im a deceased playing victim  
> slip the face, slip the victory  
> i think ive made my choice  
> sit secluded in hatred  
> devoid of plans friends are making  
> i think ive found my voice  
> im a leech, sucking blood bag  
> taste defeat, its a sandbag  
> ======  
> wilbur soot - saline solution
> 
> cw // vomiting, pills, lung illnesses, blood, hospitals, anxiety/panic attacks

“Uno.”

Wilbur gingerly places a card down on the pile messily collecting on his lap. A blue two.

“Damnit!” Tommy, sitting on a cushioned hospital chair to the side of Wilbur’s bed, stands up with an alight glare, small flickering flames held in the coal that is his pupils. He slams his cards down onto the edge of the bed.

“Calm down, Toms. It’s not Wil’s fault you suck.”

Tommy whips his head around to face Techno, who’s sat stretched out on an identical hospital chair. “Frick you!”

“It’s just called being honest.”

“Oh shut up—I’ll kill you!” Tommy squeaks, starting to Techno’s side of the bed. Techno startles up, his chair screeching behind him, booking it out into the hallway. Tommy follows, a small smile managing to break through onto his face.

Wilbur goes to follow them, a childish giggle bubbling in his throat, but it pops once he’s pulled back down by his arms. His head falls back onto the limp, sterile pillow and he blinks in surprise, before sighing, deep and hollow.

The IV’s. They’re pricked into his skin by the wrists, pumping his body full of harsh nutrients and bitter liquids. He wants to hurl just thinking of it. He can practically feel their intrusion into his body, the inside of his skin crawling at the feeling. He closes his eyes to give them a well-deserved break from the harsh white lights. They flicker like the light in Tommy’s eyes, though unlike his little brother, they’re not warm. They’re cold. They add to the sterile feeling of the building he’s coming to know like a second home.

He wipes at the cold sweat forming on his hairline.

He hears footsteps. He knows instantly they’re not his brothers; these steps are heavier, more solid. A set of them are familiar. He keeps his eyes closed, both due to the strain of the light and his own curiosity.

They enter the room.

“Is there really nothing we can do?”

“There are steps you can take to help, but I’m afraid the damage is irreversible.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“Well, if it’s possible, we’d like to keep him overnight for observation.”

“He’s already been here a few days!”

“He’s suffering from three chronic conditions, Mr. Pandel. With all due respect, we need to make sure he can breathe on his own before he let him go off.”

“...right. I understand.”

“Dr. Harris suggests we put him on salmeterol, which should help with the COPD along with the asthma and emphysema. In addition, we’d recommend steroids, in particular beclomethasone dipropionate and pulmicort in small doses.”

“How would they be taken?”

“Through his rescue inhaler. It should be easy enough for him to adjust to, considering he’s already on albuterol. I can issue you a prescription for all three.”

“Will it be covered?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Alright, that's… that's fine. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

There’s a bit more talking, big words Wilbur doesn’t really understand, numbers and the scribbling of a pen on paper. The nurse’s voice gives him goosebumps, the cold, certain sharpness of it.

The sharper, unfamiliar set of footsteps eventually recede out of the room. Wilbur hesitantly opens his eyes, blinking at the white light, brighter and harsher than any flickering fire in a Pandel’s gaze. His dad staring at the doorway, holding a white stapled packet in his hands. His fingers are white with the intensity of his grip on the paper. Wilbur can’t make out any of the text, just messy dark blue scribbles.

“Dad?”

Phil looks over his shoulder and down at Wilbur. His eyes are glossy, the white light reflecting off their surface. It’s a stark contrast to the gray outside, dark and stormy and shaded. He prefers the latter.

“Hey, Wil. You just wake up?”

Wilbur nods.

“Well, good morning. Evening. Whatever. Your brothers are outside. I caught ‘em running around the halls like crazy people.” 

Wilbur wants to snicker. Instead, he forces a smile. A sad gleam sparks in Phil’s eyes, blue as the liquid forcing its way into Wilbur. 

“You’ll be sleeping over here just one more night, and then we’ll finally go home. Isn’t that exciting?”

Wilbur nods. 

Phil doesn’t say anything, looking at him for a moment before walking over and ruffling his hair, thin with sweat and dirt. Wilbur leans into it before the warmth is pulled back and he leans back into the pillow.

“Everything’ll be fine, alright? You’ll be fine. We can watch Horrible History tomorrow, all four of us. It’ll be fine.”

“I know, dad.” Wilbur says quietly, his voice barely above a mumble. His throat feels weighted.

Phil gives him a strained, sad stretch of his lips, before heading out to the hallway. He trails his hand along the bed frame before he’s too far to comfortably do so.

The door shuts, and Wilbur feels disgustingly clean again.

* * *

He wakes up with a start.

The light of the city streetlamps shines through his blinds, leaving alight stripes along his face and upper chest. His eyes sting, despite the darkness of his room. He rubs them dry, ignoring the sting the cold sweat of his hand leaves behind.

He rolls onto his side, facing away from the wall. He feels eyes everywhere, boring into his exposed chest and stringy, knotted hair. Into areas covered by pajama bottoms and a blanket. Under his own skin and bones. 

An uncomfortable lump forms in his throat. 

He swallows it down.

His eyes begin to adjust to the dark. On his end table, there’s a spilled over bottle of small white tablets. Wilbur assumes it’s panadol. It’s formed in a small, wide lump.

On the other side of the room, on Techno’s mattress, is Tommy. Wilbur feels affection flutter in his stomach at the sight of his younger brother sprawled out on the ground. Nowadays, he looks the most himself when asleep. The least tense, the least worried.

A frown eases its way onto his face. He sighs through his nose, rolling back onto his back, his eyes etching along the lines of the ceilings brown water stains. The darkened patches that show the truth to their condition. It’s how they’ve always been, under the laughter and uno games. The teasing and smiles. The family photos. The anime watching nights, the minecraft builds.

He shuffles to sit up, leaning against his damp pillow. The bed frame presses against his spine, sending sharp shots of pain through the knobs and crevices. The backs of his eyes sting, his body is sore; a mild pain, prodding at the back of his mind like a bear being poked with a pipe. A rusted, metal pipe, long and curling and filled with sustaining blue liquid.

He reaches over to his end table and pinches a tablet up and out of the pile. He’s pretty sure he feels it melt under cold sweat, but he ignores it, popping it onto his tongue and biting down with his front teeth, barely even cringing at the medicinal taste that bursts in his mouth like a broken needle under the heel of a boot. His fingers clench against the sheetless mattress.

He kicks his blanket off his legs and gently swings them to rest against the floor. The room’s air is cold, bitter and confining. The window is open. Wilbur stands, stretches, doesn’t bother to shut it. The smell of smoke blows through the pulled up glass. He leaves the room before it has a chance to take over the taste of sleep in his mouth.

He manages to navigate his way to the bathroom despite the shrouding of darkness. He’s traversed this hall countless times since he was a child. It’s not just  _ like  _ second nature to him, it  _ is  _ second nature to him. He’s as familiar with it as he is a hospital’s porcelain floors. It’s white flickering lights. It’s occupants cries of grief. It’s refilling of his inhaler.

He shuts the bathroom door and snaps the light on. The bright lights sting harshly against his sleep-blurry eyes, making them water and making him wince, clenching his fingers against the counter as he adjusts.

He looks like a newly killed ghost, desperate yet accepting, pale and knotted. His hair is a mess, falling over his eyes and forehead in messy, untamable curls. His eyes are red around the corners and glossed over, not just with sleep, and his eyes are purple under the bottom eyelids.

He looks scarily alive.

For a moment, he envies Tommy. He shakes that thought away. 

He exits and heads back into the hallway. It’s pitch black, with a slight light at the end in the living room, stretching down the floor and up the wall. He feels bad that he takes some of it when he reaches it, blocking out what could be feeding the chipped paint stuck to the wall.

“Wil.”

Wilbur looks up. Techno. He’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the window.

The one notable thing about their otherwise notable apartment is their window. It’s huge, stretching from the damp carpet to the popcorn ceiling and only leaving slivers of brick on either side of it. It’s never broken since they arrived.

For a moment, Wilbur’s tempted to say Techno shouldn’t lean on the window. It could shatter under its own weight and send him falling through.

He stays quiet.

“What’re you doing up? It’s almost five in the morning.” Techno looks back out the window. Wilbur can only imagine what he’s thinking about.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Techno quietly snorts, low and deep under his breath. A subtle, yet slapping reminder they’re not the only ones awake. “You know the answer to that.”

Wilbur sighs. “Insomnia?” Techno hums and nods. Wilbur rolls his eyes and heads into the kitchenette.

“If you want food, we don’t have much left. I think there’s some canned peaches in the cabinet.”

“Can you open the can?”

“Bring it here.” Wilbur can hear the eye roll in Techno’s voice. 

He stands next to Techno as he slowly chews on the peaches. He barely manages to stab them with his flimsy fork. The prongs bend against the fruit like feathers against a stuffy bedroom drawer. 

Huh.

“Remember that feather collection dad had?”

“Has. He left it here.”

Wilbur looks down at Techno, sitting on the ground with his knees curled to his chest. He looks cold, sitting there in his fluffy red jacket and wrapped in Phil’s old blanket. “What?”

“He left the feathers here. I checked through his bedroom earlier since, y’know.” He glances up at Wilbur. His eyes look red around the corners, white pages stained with blood from an untreated paper cut. “I figured… I should sleep in there with Tommy.”

“How come?”

“Have you forgotten why he slept in our room?”

Wilbur doesn’t say anything, looking back to the skyline as he slips another peach between his teeth, chewing slowly. Contemplatively. He can still taste the sting of medicine, resting heavy on his tongue like death.

“How… is Tommy?”

“He’s… I mean, how would you have reacted if dad left when you were sixteen?”

“Bloody hell, I don’t even wanna think about it.” Wilbur snickers quietly. Waterly, like the juice sitting on the bottom of the can. It looks like vomit. He wonders if they’re overdue.

“How are you doing?”

“What?”

“You were the closest with dad.” Techno has the audacity to not even look at him.

“I’m doing fine. I’ve barely even thought about him.”

“Oh, that is such  _ bullshit _ , Wil.” Techno’s voice flares up. It sounds strained, angry. His eyes are burning. The bloodied page being lapped by flames around the crumpled edges.

“What? I haven’t!”

Techno stood.

“I know you have. How much panadol have you taken?”

“Not a lot. Barely any.” He can’t taste the peaches anymore.

“The prescription was just filled Sunday. You should have more than half.”

“You counted my pills?”

“You left them out over the fucking end table!” Techno blinks the flames from his eyes, hushing his voice. “Seriously Wil, why did you even do that? You knew Tommy would be sleeping in our room.” His quiet whispers just fuel Wilbur’s voice even more, like water to a gasoline fire.

“I don’t get how just  _ seeing  _ pills would affect him, you overly-sensitive-”

“Keep your voice down!” Techno steps closer to him, pressing his hands down on his shoulders. The weight feels like bricks against Wilbur’s bones, bashing in an attempt to form a crack that’s already there.

“Fuck you Techno! Fuck you.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to work you up.” Techno sighs, moving his hands down to Wilbur’s biceps. His lips draw up into a straight line, stiff and tight. “I’m just worried. You’ve never needed that much before.”

“Maybe I do now. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“You’re not the only one who’s ill.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes. “Right.”

“No, I’m serious!”

“You and Tommy got off lucky. Do either of you have to carry an inhaler around constantly? Do either of you have to take six different medications just because of your fucking lungs?”

Techno sighs through his nose. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Let go of me.”

Techno does, turning around and picking up his discarded blanket. Wilbur looks down at the can in his hand. At the slightly moldy peaches swirling in chunky liquid. He feels sick.

“Look Wil, I just…”

“I get it, you’re worried. Whatever.”

“I should be!” Techno turns back around. His knuckles look as pale as Wilbur feels. “Phil is gone! Our dad is gone. Tommy’s dad is gone. Someone has to worry about us. Someone has to care.”

“You sound so pretentious.”

“No, I’m serious. You don’t care.”

“Of course I care!”

“You can’t.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I saw how you looked when that man got ran over. When Toms saw his corpse. You didn’t care. And I can’t blame you, you’ve been desensitized. I’ve been desensitized.” 

“Just get fucking on with it—”

“There’s a difference between the two of us.” Techno’s glare hardens. Wilbur misses the warmth of the fire. “I still care about things. You don’t.”

“That is such—”

“When’s the last time you’ve gone out and seen anyone?” Wilbur’s jaw snaps shut. The teeth grind against each other. He can taste the pills bursting under their weight. “The last time you’ve gone looking for a job? The last time you’ve gone outside when you weren’t picking Toms up?”

“I—”

“Whether you want to admit it or not, Wil, you don’t care.”

“I don’t—”

“Like, I get it, y’know? You’re sick, that sucks, dad left, that really sucks. But you can’t- you can’t just not care anymore!”

“Can you—”

“And I don’t know what you expect me to do. I can open cans for you. I can keep Tommy from getting on the wrong train. But at the end of the day, I can’t—”

“Shut up!”

Techno falls to the ground. His upper back first, then his lower back and legs, his head last. It falls against the carpet with a bang, Techno instantly moving his hand back to cradle it. The blanket falls to graze against his side.

Wilbur is panting, suddenly feeling exhausted. His sweat isn’t cold anymore. It’s practically boiling, sticking to his skin like the warm, newly spilt blood his fingers draw from the indents his nails make in his palms.

Techno looks up with cold, wild eyes. 

“You don’t care. You haven’t for a long time.”

And that’s when he sees it. Techno moves his palm back to reveal blood. It glistens with white in the moonlight, staining Techno’s skin orange and red.

Wilbur can taste copper.

A chill ripples down through him. His palms feel clammy.

“Shit, I—”

He runs. He feels so sick. So fucking sick.

He barely makes it before he hurls. He shakes over the bowl, his body crawling with goosebumps and heat and cold. His skin is so fucking tight, he wants the eyes he feels staring holes into it to just rip it off already.

He gags. It’s red.

He rests his head against the seat and gags again, cold, slimy tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and dripping down to his chin. They stain spitty dots into his pants.

He feels a cool rag on the back of his neck. His head is gently lifted up by the jawline. He lets it, lets the comforting cool move from his neck to his forehead. It washes the lingering sweat from it and his hairline.

“Hey, you’re okay.” 

“Dad, dad it… it’s red, I don’t want to go back—”

“Shh, it’s fine. It’s okay.” The toilet flushes. He doesn’t taste copper anymore. Just medicine and acid.

“I—I hurt Tech, I—I didn’t… I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t, I—”

And he sees it, then. The staining of copper on his dad’s hand. The black polish painted along his nails.

“T—Tech?”

“Yeah, I’m here, it’s okay.”

“I—fuck, I’m so fucking sorry.” His eyes burst into flames, burning and licking, the water pooling at the corners just fueling the gasoline even more.

He feels arms wrap around his middle, a solid weight stretched over his back. He leans into it, turning his head and burying his sticky, cool face into the warm red fabric. 

A chin rests on top of his head. 

It shifts as a voice mumbles into his ear.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made this chapter a lot longer than the previous one; it has over double as many words. i hope you enjoyed it, it was fun to write!


	3. la jolla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur considers the statement for longer than he should.
> 
> By the time his response is ready, no longer resting with the blood on his tongue, it’s too late.
> 
> “Wil! Toms!”
> 
> He feels Tommy shift above him. “Yeah?”
> 
> “It’s dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe one day ill live in la jolla  
> drinking cocktails out over the water  
> my own personal sunset  
> to give each day its own diploma  
> and you know its funny  
> amid my backseat taxi jaunts  
> im trying to ignore the skyline  
> so i dont figure out where you...  
> ======  
> wilbur soot - la jolla
> 
> cw // suicide ideation, mentioned underage drinking

The TV light flickers.

“God, the powers shit tonight.”

“Yeah. Probably the storm that happened the other night.”

“Just wish it would fix itself already.” Tommy scowls, crossing his arms under the warmth of his blanket.

The brothers are sprawled out on a worn leather couch. Techno leans against one arm, Tommy in the middle, Wilbur resting his head on Tommy’s lap, his legs dangling over the other arm.

“The storm was nice though. Peaceful.” Wilbur pipes up as Tommy combs his fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Aw, did the thunder scare you, Toms?” Wilbur coos teasingly.

“Fuck off, no it didn’t.”

Wilbur blows a mocking raspberry at him. Tommy tugs his hair in retaliation.

The phone rings.

“I’ll get it.” Techno tosses his weighted blanket onto Tommy’s lap, directly onto Wilbur’s face.

“What the fuck?” Wilbur sputters as Tommy cackles, slipping his fingers from Wilbur’s hair to hold the blanket over his face.

“Eat shit, Bitch Boy.” 

Wilbur claws at his hands. “Let me go, you fucking-”

“Hush, you two. Hello?”

There’s a pause. Techno's voice is too quiet and muffled for Wilbur to make out any words, but he can hear the shaken mumbling, tense and waiting.

“I feel like such a dork whenever Tech’ uses that thing.” Tommy’s voice is a quiet whisper, low and cautious even under the heat of the polyester. “Wish we could afford normal ones.”

“I can’t breathe.” Wilbur deadpans, muffled.

“Shit, sorry.” Tommy moves the blanket off to the side, falling onto Wilbur’s calves. 

Wilbur nods blearily, and Tommy weaves his fingers back into his hair, working to relax the twisting of hair forever knotted together.

Techno’s voice is a deep mumble, too faint for either of them to hear, even with the weighted warmth moved to his aching limbs.

“Do you think it’s dad?”

“I dunno. Could be.” 

“I hope so."

Wilbur closes his eyes. The silence between the two of them is calming. Wilbur’s wrapped around the finger of the heater, the fuzzy weight of his blanket and the combing of fingers through his hair.

They rarely have moments like this. With Wilbur’s distance and Tommy’s clinginess, it’s a fight neither of them are sure they even want to win. 

When it’s just like this, surrounded by soft warmth and old black-and-white movies Phil had made them grow up on, it all seems small in comparison. The numbing apathy that had wrapped itself around Wilbur seems to have gone to rest. Tommy’s desperation seems to lie dormant, even if just for the night. Everything needs at least a little sleep, Wilbur supposes.

“Hey Wil?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you miss dad?” 

Tommy’s voice echoes through his fingertips, pressing into Wilbur’s head and resting as an odd, coppery taste in the back of his throat.

“Of course I do.”

“You don’t seem like it.”

Wilbur considers the statement for longer than he should.

By the time his response is ready, no longer resting with the blood on his tongue, it’s too late.

“Wil! Toms!”

He feels Tommy shift above him. “Yeah?”

“It’s dad.”

The moment’s broken.

Tommy flings himself off the couch, accidentally shoving the heel of his foot into Wilbur’s nose bridge in the process. 

Neither of them are bothered. 

Footsteps pound against the tiled linoleum. “Dad! Hey! Bloody hell, I haven’t heard from you in so long, I was so worried, I-”

Wilbur opens his eyes, blinking at the dim light from the movie, now paused on their TV. It’s stuck on a still of a cityline, the moon shining bright above the smokeless sky. Wilbur hates it.

He sits up and slides over the back of the couch, stopping next to Techno, who’s leaning on the fridge with tight, strained lips and white knuckles.

“Dad, huh?” Wilbur quietly breathes out, watching Tommy gesture wildly as he rambles about some ‘Power Tower’ he made at school. Wilbur wants to care for it more than he does.

“Yeah. He said he wanted to talk to you two.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Figures.”

Wilbur’s lungs tighten as he watches Tommy. He looks so excited over a man who left them. A man who ditched them for some pretty American city. Who didn’t call or even write a letter for weeks.

“It’s just… why now?” Techno glances over at him from his peripheral vision. “Why not weeks ago when he first dipped? There’s payphones, he could borrow someone's phone to just quickly say ‘Hey guys! I’m alive!’ or something, y’know?”

“I get it. I mean… moving’s hard. Maybe he just needed to save money. Find a place first. Didn’t want the threat of being hurt or the call suddenly ending to be looming over him.”

“He still could’ve said something.”

“We’re not discussing this now.” Techno juts his chin towards Tommy, who’s seemingly listening to the other end of the call, eyes sparked with an energy Wilbur hasn’t seen in weeks.

“Right.” 

Wilbur’s lungs ache with the weight of the air.

Not even his inhaler can lift it.

* * *

Rain spills against the taxi windows.

It patters and ripples, pooling at the bottom and dripping down. Wilbur can almost feel it; the way it would rot his skin, burn his fingertips down to bone and then some. 

_ Rain doesn’t burn you, kiddo. At worst, it’ll give you a cold. You should wear a coat to be safe, actually. _

He glances over at Techno and Tommy. 

“Your Sister Was Right was the best one. He sang it so well!”

“Eh. I liked Losing Face more. Intense.”

“You have such shit taste. Wil!” Tommy looks over at Wilbur.

Wilbur wants to smile at his failed attempt to hide his flinch when their gazes meet, cold and warm, numb and energized. Two opposites for an apathetic collision. 

“They’re your songs. Which one was your favorite?”

Wilbur shrugs. “Honestly, I’m not too proud of any of them.”

“What? How? They were so good! Everyone else thought so too.”

“There were like… twelve people there. You were definitely the loudest.”

Tommy scowls. “Rude.”

“He’s right.”

Tommy turns back to Techno. “Oh fuck off, Techno.”

Wilbur tunes them to white noise. 

His eyes watch the headlights flash by hazily, the red and yellow blurring to long, stretched out stripes. Warm trails of blood and fat against cold, damp asphalt.

He envies them. Sometimes he wants to be sprawled out against the road, too.

* * *

Tommy’s the only one asleep. Again.

That seems to be a trend.

It’s different now, though. 

It’s still evening, the sky just about to darken out its shadows. 

Wilbur’s meds are cleaned up, piled neatly in an orange bottle.

Techno isn’t sitting by the window. 

There’s no peaches left. Two cans of soup and an old bottle of wine. 

His knuckles are white against the glass.

They’re as tight and strained as the shoulders of the man sitting on the roof.

“I got wine.”

Techno glances over his shoulder. Wilbur can’t read him.

“Not much of a drinker.”

“I know.”

They sit on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge. The road, miles down, taunts Wilbur with the screeches of cars and mumbling of crowds.

He tilts his head back. He wants to say he gives up in that moment, but he already did weeks ago.

“I feel like a kid.”

“How come?”

“Wine hasn’t burned since I was fifteen.”

Techno laughs. Genuinely laughs, hearty and deep, a rumbling buried under the smoke caught in his ribs. It lightens the burning weight in Wilbur’s throat, if only briefly.

“You’re a mess, Wil.”

“So are you.”

His smile loosens. “Yeah.”

It’s quiet. The clouds change from grey to a ruddy brown.

“I wonder if dads watching the sunset right now.”

“It’s probably like… five in the morning there.”

Techno doesn’t respond. Wilbur glances at him. His eyes glisten with red in the corners, stained with emotion in the center. 

His face looks flushed.

“You want my scarf?”

“That… yeah.”

The red suits him well.

“He always talked about how nice the sunsets were there. I’m sure he’s watched each one since he got there.”

“I can’t wait to see one.”

Wilbur glances back to the clouds. “You think you will?"

There’s a pause.

“I…”

Wilbur takes another swig of fruity escape. It burns even more.

Techno stands up. Wilbur doesn’t bother to look at him, vision hazy despite the cold, rounded glasses perched on his face.

“Wine getting a bit too tempting for you?”

“No.” Techno sounds worried. When Wilbur glances over his shoulder, he’s staring out over at the skyline. His eyes look red in the light.

“You’re not too far off, though.” 

Wilbur’s alone again.

The wine sits like a rock in his stomach.


	4. losing face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wake up, you moron.”
> 
> Wilbur pulls his blanket down a little to reveal his hair and eyes, peaking over his shoulder. 
> 
> Techno. 
> 
> He looks tired, baggy eyes weighing him down like age and said eyes rimmed red. His hair is a mess, thin and flat, and his jacket hangs loosely over his shoulders.
> 
> “I just dropped Toms off at school. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i havent written much  
> you know the way i can be  
> tonight im fucking drunk  
> so its all gonna be about me  
> take a seat  
> pull up a chair  
> give me one beat to fill my glass  
> ive lost a piece of me in you  
> but youve lost all your past  
> is he better than me?  
> ======  
> wilbur soot - losing face
> 
> cw // drinking, alcohol-induced blackouts

There’s yelling. Loud, high pitched yelling. 

Wilburs mind, hazy with soot and smoke, can’t decipher if it’s pained or joyous. He wants to hope for the latter, but for some shaded, curious reason, he can’t.

To his right, an artificial redhead roughly gesticulates as he goes on about… something. Some technical nerdy thing. Wilbur’s unsure how he’s managed to keep a crowd captivated for this long considering the topic, but he’s somehow done it. 

Faces twist together as they listen to Fundy drone on and on about coding and mathematics and numbers, all blurring together like a messy watercolor. He takes another large gulp of vodka. It burns in his throat like swallowing fire, but he ignores it, wine long gone in the crowd of dark smoke, horny college students grinding on each other amidst it. Wilbur scowls at it.

Fundy and Wilbur had gone to the party with the intent of just spending time together. Wilbur’s been, in Fundy’s words, ‘way too antisocial’ since that night he found Phil’s note, and knowing Wilbur’s love for crowds and weighted neon lights, brought him out to a college party hosted by one of his friends, Ryan, who had started college a few years late.

The apartment was crowded, and Wilbur had to give it to him, Fundy knew what Wilbur would like. Unfortunately for the both of them, Wilbur’s been anything but himself the past few weeks. So, where he’d normally be in the center of the crowd, dancing with strangers and amidly telling stories with enough passion and charm to get half the attendees to listen, he’s now just leaning on chipped drywall, humidity dampening his hair and stinging his eyes, the influence of alcohol and whatever substances he’s taken dampening his mind.

The crowd slowly shuffles to form a half circle around Fundy, leaving Wilbur shoved out on the edge of the party-goers. Fundy notices Wilbur’s position from the corner of his eye, the brown-amber sparking with light as he raises an eyebrow.

_You good?_

Wilbur shrugs, body and mind weighted with churning saltwater.

_I’m fine._

He shrugs and goes back to the crowd. He’s moved to talk about some anime. Wilbur doesn’t really care. 

Wilbur makes his way through the crowd. They push and shove against him like dark pillars of heaving water, threatening to topple over and drown him at any moment. The salt teasingly dances in the back of his throat, mixing with the flames of vodka and vomit. Water to a gasoline fire.

He ends up at a set of stairs, mostly cleared of any people. A few stragglers here and there, red cups in their hands and talking with an intensity only drunk twenty year olds can achieve. He’s harshly shoved to the side by two girls sloppily making out as they scramble up the stairs, one with stringy brown hair and the other with tacky pink box dye. He scowls.

“Watch where you’re going, dipshits.” Wilbur mutters, voice low and threatening to burst, distracted and fuzzy.

The brunette breaks from her partner to glare at him. “Fuck off.” 

Wilbur makes his way up the stairs, shoving them aside as he does so. He doesn’t look back when the brunette yells out a harsh “Hey!”, followed by a thud.

He makes his way into the bathroom and throws himself against the door, struggling to lock it with sweaty fingers and hazy vision. 

He doesn’t bother to look at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t want to see how far he’s spiraled. Instead, he drops in front of the toilet, opening the lid and dry heaving.

He sits in silence for a few seconds. Minutes. Time’s fuzzy under the influence.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Wil? It’s me, Callum. Fundy wanted me to check up on you, said you didn’t look too good. Saw your little scuffle with Diana, too.”

Wilbur doesn’t reply. His legs ache, his head screams, his eyes rub raw behind themselves. There’s a bit of shuffling, footsteps, and then a click.

The door opens. “Fuck, Wil.”

Wilbur only hums in reply. 

He can’t remember much after that. He assumes he blacked out, it’s all fuzzy and dark. He feels like he’s buried underwater, weight pushing down and around him, weighing down his bones and sticking cloth to pale, goosebumped flesh. 

When he comes back too, he’s floating. Arms hold him sturdy, a cascade of mumbling, shadowed voices around him.

“...Fundy?” His weak cry is muffled by a wool-lined jacket.

“You’re a mess, Wil.”

“D-Dad-”

“Second time you’ve called me that.” There’s a small laugh, not the usual high joy his brother usually has.

* * *

Wilbur leans his head against the glass, cool and damp and covered in a thin layer of frost. Techno says something, though it all translates as a blurred, fuzzy mess in Wilbur’s mind. 

His stomach rises in his mouth as the car spins and jumps. He swallows it down.

They somehow make it back to their apartment. Arms pick him up again, the car pulls away, and they’re going up an elevator.

“Why, Wil?”

Wilbur tears up a little in the nape of Techno’s neck. He doesn’t really have an answer. 

* * *

Foggy light shines through an arching window.

Wilbur groans, rolling over and burning his face into the back of the couch.

“Wake up, you moron.”

Wilbur pulls his blanket down a little to reveal his hair and eyes, peaking over his shoulder. 

Techno. 

He looks tired, baggy eyes weighing him down like age and said eyes rimmed red. His hair is a mess, thin and flat, and his jacket hangs loosely over his shoulders.

“I just dropped Toms off at school. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

They talk over a plentiful breakfast, courtesy of the elder brother. Two pieces of toast and some poorly aged juice. Wilburs grip is weak, threatening to break through the barely cooked bread, crumbling at the seams.

“How’d you know where I was?”

“Fundy called me. Callum had you set up in Ryan’s bedroom and you looked like shit. Blacked out as soon as Callum broke into the bathroom.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes, dropping the rest of his toast onto the plate.

“You should finish that. We didn’t really have any dinner yesterday. Or lunch.”

“Not hungry.”

“At least drink the juice. You’re sure to be dehydrated from how pissed you were.”

Wilbur complies. Lets the pulpy mess drown down his throat, harshly clashing with the few bits of flaky toast stuck there.

They sit in silence for a second.

“Toms was worried about you.”

“You can tell him I’m fine.”

“I did.” Techno’s voice sparks harshly, a rusted barrel being set alight by strangled lowlifes with brown hair and awkward, lanky legs. “You can’t keep doing this, Wil. Both for your sake and his.”

“He’s fine. He’s the same way he’s always been. Spending time with Tubbo and Jack, getting in trouble at school—”

“He hasn’t been fine!” Techno stands up in his seat, fork rattling on paper plate as he slams his hands against their flimsy plastic table. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You’ve been too busy wallowing in the past and getting pissed off your ass.”

“I would’ve noticed if something were off!” Wilbur goes to stand, but his legs shake under the pressure, forcing him to stay seated.

“Oh, would you now? Cause you haven’t. You’ve slept through his breakdowns. Hallucinated in our bedroom whilst I was a room over bandaging him up because he got in a fight with Tubbo.”

Wilbur blinks. “He got in a fight with Tubbo?”

“See?” Techno gestures in a chunky mixture of hopelessness and exasperation. “You didn’t even notice his broken nose. Eret got a good few hits on him and you didn’t even _fucking_ notice!”

His voice raises into a harsh, strangled yell. His shoulders heave under the weight of his anger.

Wilbur doesn’t say anything. 

Techno sighs, weight flowing through the breath, and sits back down, picking at his toast with dulled fork.

“You’re a real bastard, Tech.”

“How am _I_ the bastard?”

“You think you’re some brother of the year. Don’t think I forgot.”

“Forgot _what_?”

“The way you’d isolate yourself for days at a time! You’d never leave our bedroom, never leave your bunk. During college you’d always ditch me for those other kids in your grade, Clay and Burren and Zak. You and dad would be out for hours, leave me to take care of things here, take care of Tommy.”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Dare what, Techno?”

“That doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” Wilbur glares, fingers clenching against paper plate and what remains of his toast. “But don’t you act like you’re some fucking model sibling, like I’m the dick. We’ve both fucked up.”

Techno’s silent, eyes beginning to glisten.

“I’ll be picking him up at three.”

Wilbur ignores the eyes as he leaves.

* * *

“…and then Tubbo, who’d been silent during our whole conversation, suddenly perked up and yelled, ‘Bees? Oh, I love bees!’”

Wilbur manages a smile as Tommy wildly gestures, eyes wide and bright.

The rain drizzles down like a quiet haze, leaving small droplets on Tommy’s hair and, presumably, Wilbur’s. Glasses are slightly blurry due to the fog and rain, but Wilbur doesn’t mind. 

Streetlights reflect off the puddles on the water. Fog hangs in the distance, clouds blur together into a solid light grey above them, cold and thin, the taste of smoke lingering in the air.

“So you’re doing your project on bees?”

“Tub' seemed passionate about it, so why not? Jack and Eryn were fine with it.”

“So you’re getting along now?”

Tommy blinks up at him. “Huh?”

“Techno mentioned you and Tubbo got in a fight.”

“Oh.” Tommy swallows. Runs his tongue along his lip, squinting down at the concrete, caked with a shallow layer of water, dampening Wilbur’s boots. “Yeah. We’re fine now, though. It was a while ago. Eret doesn’t like me anymore, though.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Tommy blurts out in a rush, wind whistling through grinding bones.

The rush swallows Wilbur whole. Fills his lungs with heavy water until he can’t get the breath of words out.

“Okay.”

They spend the rest of the journey in silence, churning and weighted as the salt filling his chest.

All he says once they get home, “is Techno at work?”

"Yeah. He is."

Tommy’s quick to run after that, managing some slurred together excuse Wilbur can’t be bothered to pick up from its puddle on the ground.

He tosses his thin gear into a sloppy fire pit around the coat rack. Reaches for his scarf, grasping at his neck for a moment before remembering. The empty space feels tight, air threatening to close in on him.

Pretzels sprinkle against a stained plastic bowl. The rim is flimsy, stiff yet flexible, the pretzels barely salted, most likely stale. Wilbur pours all the dust and broken bits into the bowl, leaving the bag flattened against the counter, just like it deserves.

He’s on his way to deliver dinner when he spots it.

It's small, left adrift on the countertop with nothing but a pen keeping it afloat. Wilbur picks it up with one hand, the edges threatening to cut the pads of his fingers as his eyes scan the harsh, fiery scrawl on the paper.

He drops the bowl. It lets out a small tap, spins, and steadies. His fingernails push small crescents into the ripped notebook paper as he steps back, dropping the paper into the now empty bowl, pretzels scattered around it like stones to a bonfire.

He lets out a slow cry. At first tight, airy and shaky, quickly free falling into fiery, angered and spitty.

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t stop as plates and bowls smash against the tiles, not as a clock comes crumbling down onto the carpet, not as a TV screen shatters and not as footsteps come thundering down the hall.

Not even as their window shatters outward onto the street.

Arms wrap around his torso, warmth enveloping him. His shoulders heave with weight and heat, his face flushed and wet, eyes stinging with what feels like blood, burning and bubbling under warm eyelids. His fingers clench and unclench with bits of glass and boiling copper.

His vision is blurred by a mop of blond, shoulders shaking in a completely different fashion then his own. Fingers clenching and unclenching fistfuls of his button-up, fingernails digging into his back and knees digging into his hips.

The ground feels cold against his shaky legs.

There’s breathy, quiet sobs in the nape of his neck.

Wilbur lets his own release.

* * *

“I’m feeling safer than I knew I could be.”

He blinks up at Tommy from his seat on the floor, curled in what was once Techno’s bunk.

“With your arms dragging me,”

Tommy lets out a weak snore. Wilbur smiles breathily, letting out a silent sigh of content.

“...into the sea.”

Wilbur stands, letting his knees and hips crack with the weight. He doesn’t bother with the outro. Sets his guitar onto the mattress of the bottom bunk, leaning up to look at his younger brother.

He’s always only looked his age when he’s asleep. Lines of worry and discontent, specks of poverty and injury, all facts of the waking world. In the inky nothingness of sleep, it’s all something of nonexistence.

He brushes some hair out of the teens face and leaves him to rest. Grabs his guitar by the empty neck on the way out.

He tosses a lit match onto the pile of branches and dried leaves stuffed into a rusted barrel. It lights up in a warm, licking fire, a stark contrast to the long darkened night and smoky sky covering what could be a dancing sparkle of stars.

He leans against the sidewall that serves as a divider between existence and oblivion. To be awake or to sleep. Sleep and never wake up.

He strums a few chords on his guitar, before his throat tightens, tempting to close on him. Teeth tease against his bottom lip, threatening to rip and tear.

He sets it down on the concrete. Pulls his knees up to his chest and watches the fire from over them. The flames dance and twirl, brothers in blood, enjoying the nothingness of childhood. The falsehood of it, the lies and joy.

“I just… don’t understand.”

The fire continues to dance.

“Why? Why go to him? He left us. He… he left you.”

The fire glistens red in the citylight.

“Is he better than me?”

The fire doesn’t respond.

“Of course he is. He’s… he’s dad. He’s better than any of us. Anyone in this god-forsaken city.”

The tips burn pink.

“He’s broken us before. He’ll break us again. You’re the one who let Toms see that man die the morning after dad ditched us. How will you even get there? It’s across the ocean and then some.”

The soot continues to rise. It overtakes the pink and red, turning back to orange and yellows, white flickering in embers.

Wilbur lets the chewed corners of his mouth upturn. “For someone who cares ‘so much’ about Toms, you were quick to leave him here with me.”

Techno doesn’t respond.

Wilbur stands.

“I’ll take care of him for you. Even though you think I can’t.”

“After all, it’s what brothers are supposed to do.”

The clouds start to sob.

 _I’ve left_ , they cry.

_I’ve left and I’m not coming back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so if youre ?? like ??? rereading this , , hi ! i promise im working on chapter five for this fic. it means a lot to me, yknow? i dont wanna leave it abandoned. i want to give it some sort of ending. its just. difficult. life isnt all that great for me right now LOL
> 
> stay safe. ilysm <3


	5. your sister was right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy tightens his jaw, looking up from the hand gripping Wilbur’s wrist to meet Wilbur’s gaze. There’s something foreign, something light, flattened and sewn deep behind the eggshells lining his eyes. “You’re serious? You’ll do it?” 
> 
> Wilbur pierces his bottom lip with pasty canines, nodding, rubbing a gentle circle into the fabric hanging over Tommy’s shoulder, “Considering you can find the music, sure.”
> 
> “You promise?” He’s serious about this, then. His eyes burn, dry and grey, pupils boiling, bubbling as the gold in them melts into liquid, a thin sheet containing the heat. It doesn’t work all that well. His face is pale, even under the warm glow of the candle, cheeks hollow and collarbones jutting from the collar of his shirt.
> 
> Thick wool is pulled over Tommy’s head. Tommy reaches up, pulling it down so his hair just peaks from the thick red knit by redheaded hand. He blinks up at Wilbur, who pulls his hands back to cross over his chest, sending faint thrums to beat around jutting ribs.
> 
> “I promise, Tommy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i use everyone i ever meet  
> i cant find the perfect match  
> abuse those i love  
> while i ostracize the ones who love me back  
> on the path of least resistance  
> i find myself salting the earth  
> every time that i miss you  
> i feel the way you hurt  
> and i dont deserve you  
> you deserve the world  
> ======  
> wilbur soot - your sister was right
> 
> cw // suicide references, implied self-harm, implied drug addictions / alcoholism, bug imagery, panic attacks. things youd expect based on the nature of the previous chapters

No matter how many times he sees it, Wilbur will never fully feel comfortable at Tommy’s college.

It’s different than the one Wilbur and Techno had gone to. Whilst theirs was small, one-story and nestled off to the outskirts of their borough, near the riverside, this one is in the very heart of it. It’s large and tall and looming and blocky, bold white words stuck to the roof open and front fourth to all who pass. 

The whole outside of the building looms over him, artificial and cold. The chill sticking to the air doesn’t help the feeling, other than slightly dulling the harsh sting of medicine buried in the back of his throat with a less searing buzz.

From what Wilbur’s heard, both from the handouts he’s seen on their kitchen counters, given via orientation, and the youngest Pandel himself—though both are skewed in different ways—Tommy’s college is _very_ competitive. It’s highly intense in its sports and STEM programs. Wilbur knows for a fact he would have flunked if he’d attended it, though admittedly it does seem like an environment Tommy would flourish in on paper. High stress and high reward.

As Wilbur slowly pads through the rain, fringe sticking to his forehead and beanie weighing down on his skull like the discomfort in his shoulders, nose tingling with red flush and breath coming out in wispy, frosting puffs, he wonders if you can trust anything on paper.

The tiles are polished and smooth, void of mud or dirt despite it being the middle of the day. Even the mats lining the doors are spotless. The ceiling looms like a scraped clean corpse’s stomach above him, pulsing and dead and raw, squeaking rubber bouncing past it and straight back into his ears. It’s oddly overwhelming, his own gut churning with acid and tar at the familiar noise, feeling just as hollow, just as cold. 

It’s too clean, too foreign, too _fake_. Wilbur tries to ignore the sheet of bitten pill he can’t seem to get off his tongue, scraping the muscle raw with rotting teeth.

The office worsens the taste. It makes an attempt to be homely, warm and soft, though that attempt is painfully disconnected. Shiny, vibrant green plants sit in the corners, sofas made of worn brown leather threatening to cave in and the carpet a patchwork of carefully dulled purples, greens and reds. The walls are covered in posters and advertisements, _Boys Autumn Basketball_ and _Year Eleven Girls Tennis_ imprinted in staticy, black-and-white printers ink. 

Wilbur scowls at the memories they bring back. His college hadn’t been big enough to have separate sports teams for different years. Part of the reason he stuck to creative arts—Wilbur wasn’t a fan of getting pummeled by eighteen and nineteen year old white boys, thank you very much.

“Wil?”

Sitting on one of the dangerously soft sofas pushed against the wall, is Tommy. He looks like shit, an icepack covered in cheap brown paper held to his cheek, eye above it a spotted purple and downturned lip below it cut and bloody. His throat has fingerprint-like green and yellow spotting it, his blazer tied around his waist and his khakis and shirt covered in dirt, grass marks and vague copper spotting. The first couple of buttons are undone, top two completely popped out the sockets.

He’s shivering. Wilbur scowls at the sight. “Take my coat, dipshit.” 

Tommy manages to catch it, accidentally dropping his ice pack in the process. Wilbur winces. “Shit, is it that bad? I haven’t gotten to check yet, but it hurts like a bitch.”

“Just put the coat on. And keep ice on that.”

Tommy snorts, playfulness and spite both evidently etched under his wounds, pulling the coat on. It covers most of his hands and the hood droops a bit lower than it should, but it gets the job done in covering what might be some innocent teenager’s blood.

“T’was my favorite shirt too,” Tommy puts a hand to his chest and closes his eyes, a dramatic pout on his face, “Tis’ a shame, innit?” He goes all out, putting a waver in his voice and somehow drawing some extra color to his face. Wilbur, despite the circumstances, huffs out a restrained laugh through his nose, smirk playing at his lips.

Tommy opens one eye. “Is that all ‘m gonna get? You’re usually way nicer when picking me up.”

“Gotta be responsible now. Sorry bub.” 

A mark of sadness visibly strikes Tommy as Wilbur says that. Wilbur instantly wants to take the words back, to laugh until he can’t breathe and call Tommy every nice name in the book just to get the expression of restrained, complete and utter _distraught_ off his face. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to.

“Wilbur Pandel?”

Tommy blinks over his shoulder, sudden anxiety sparking with blue embers alongside his pupils, jagged ink against paper. Wilbur follows gaze toward the dean. A tall, balding man, hands clasped and face anything but pleasant, soft drooping skin tightly drawn in a scowl. He’s the exact kind of man Wilbur would expect to run a building like this.

“That’s me.”

The man nods, “My office.”

“Come on.” Wilbur offers Tommy an arm, helping him stand on shaky, purpling legs and nudging him to lean against his side. 

The office is cramped. Small and rectangular, alight with a thinning pale blue from the rainy drear outside and furnished similarly to the outer office—brown leather and sharp plastic vegetation. As the man steps into the office, it flickers alight with cold white. The room isn’t any more vibrant despite it. 

“Thank you for coming in, especially on such a short notice. You may not be aware of Thomas’s pattern of behavior since he was enrolled in this school, considering these discussions are ones I usually have with your eldest brother or father.”

Wilbur swallows and nods. 

“I’m terribly sorry about your father, by the way,” the man frowns as he sits in his chair, high-risen and far too comfortable for his dusting bones, “Truly, I am. I’d ask if his absence could have more to do with Thomas’s behavior, but you may be aware that this tracks far into the past.”

“I’ve been kept up to date,” Wilbur tries to ignore the way his skin crawls as the man talks. The way Tommy barely bites down his voice, the sharp stifling noise that rises from the back of his throat, just quiet enough for Wilbur to pick up. “Can you tell me more about what happened here today? I assume it was a fight?” He narrowly glances to the side at Tommy, frowning at the splotching of injuries.

“You assume correctly.”

“It was in self-defense! Some kids were picking fun at Tubbo, and you know I can’t have that. They were—”

“Thomas.” The man interrupts with a stern glint. Tommy shrinks, slouching down into his seat, cheeks flushed with runny embarrassment. “If I may continue?”

“You may.” Wilbur’s mind claws for him to let Tommy go on, but he ignores the white lines and drizzling crimson.

The man sits up straight, crossing his arms onto his desk and intertwining his fingers. He somehow sits taller than Wilbur, despite the lack of height. The corner of Wilbur’s lips upturn in a slight scowl, but he bites it down, spreading the draw of blood into a grotesque painting along his cheek.

“Thomas was in the courtyard for lunch this afternoon when three lowerclassmen approached him. According to the staff and bystanders, there was some tension for a few minutes, before Thomas punched one of them in the nose and a fight broke out.”

“He’s leaving so much out!” Tommy flings himself up out of his chair, body tense and eyes wild. “Wil, if you’ll just let me—”

“Thomas Pandel. Did you initiate the first punch?”

“No--I mean I did. But if you’d just _listen_ I’d be able to explain myself. You’ve been ignoring all my attempts to defend myself!”

Wilbur raises his eyebrows, confusion churning like a bubbling pot in his gut. “If I may, Mr. Robinson; could we listen to what Tommy has to say?”

There’s a beat of silence. The man sighs, deep and hollow, “Of course,” and sinks down a bit into his chair, irritation radiating in sharp, dry waves.

“Tommy, calm down and explain your side, yeah?”

“Right, of course, Wilbur, of course,” Tommy stammers and sits back down on the chair, straightening his back and clenching fistfuls of dirt-streaked pants, knuckles white.

“Me and Tubbo usually eat lunch outside together, in the courtyard. He brings his bee Spins with him, since he trusts me to not tease him about it. Says it’s comforting, helps with the stress of all his A levels.”

Tommy fidgets in his seat as he talks. Running his hand up and through his hair, pushing it back from his bloodied face. Blood streaks against the metal tying his teeth together, an unknowing parallel to the inside of Wilbur’s mouth, torn up due to stress. Picking at his cuticles, tapping his foot, scratching against his knee. The repetitive tune is oddly calming as its beats rub his skin raw.

“We were eating on one of the tables, when these three kids came at us. One had to be year thirteen, but the other two were in our year.”

“I was told they were year twelve.” There’s an odd glint in the man's eyes. Wilbur can’t fully decipher it, but he doesn’t like what he can. Not one bit.

Tommy shrugs, shifting a little on himself. He’s nervous, Wilbur can tell, based on the way his face flushes and pales and the way his fingers scramble for anything to steady themselves on.

”I'm not sure what their intention was, but the moment one of them saw Spins, he instantly grabbed it, making a big show out of waving it around and teasing Tubbo for having it. And that fucker was big, neither of us could reach it.”

“Thomas. Watch your language in this office.”

Tommy swallows, shoulders a bit shaky under the cold blue etching itself along them. Even Wilbur’s skin itches as the way the dean stares the teen down. “Right, sorry.”

“It’s okay Tommy,” Wilbur tries, gentle, reaching over to rub small circles into his shoulder, “Go on.”

Tommy nods. He harshly runs his upper teeth over his lower lip, pressing to draw blood. “Usually my presence is enough to keep people away, being the alpha male I am, but since me and Tubbo got in a fight a little while ago, people still seem to think I won’t stick up for him. I was gonna let Tubbo fight his own battle, since he doesn't like when I ‘baby’ him,” Tommy makes mocking quotations with his fingers, rolling his eyes, “But one of the pricks shoved him into a puddle and threw Spins on top of him and I was like, ‘Okay, fuck this.’ So, I stood up and stood in front of Tubbo, told the bastard to fuck off.”

“Thomas Innis Pandel, watch your language in this office or else I will not hesitate to end this conversation and suspend you immediately!”

The harsh rasp of the dean's voice makes Wilbur want to shrivel up. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t curl in on himself, at least a little. Tommy, however, scowls at the dean, crossing his arms and sarcasm dripping from his voice like morning dew to frosty grass.

“ _Right_.”

Tommy leans back in his seat, gaze white hot with annoyance. “So I tell the guy to back off. He says no and tries to shove me onto Tubbo. I manage to stay up. He takes a swing at my jaw, I punch his nose, and you know the rest.”

Tommy takes a deep, grounding breath, looking the dean dead in the eyes. “So yeah, I _punched_ first, but I didn’t take the first swing.”

“Watch your tone with me. Even if that is true—”

“My brother acted in self defense. If he’s punished, the students who instigated the conflict should be punished accordingly as well?”

Tommy sends him an appreciative glance from the corner of his eye. Wilbur bites back a smile, sitting straight in his seat with his hands folded along his forearms, gripping tight along the dark wool of his sweater. 

He hopes his face is neutral as the dean leans back in his chair, the springs creaking under the saggy skin barely tied to aged bones, thread threatening to snap, “I don’t believe your brother's story.”

“What—why not?!” Tommy jerks up in place, only kept down by the affirming hand on his shoulder.

“It’s three against one, two if your mentioned party is willing to give a statement on the matter.”

“What about the bystanders?” Wilbur likes to think his voice is calm, that he keeps the sudden spike of anger swallowed down. Based on the glower the dean sends his way, that thought probably isn’t accurate.

“There were already very few, and most of them claim in the other party’s favor. You’re lucky I’m not taking their word in account for Thomas’s punishment.”

Tommy blinks, shoulder tensing under Wilbur’s palm.

“Punishment?”

The dean raises an eyebrow, gaze still interlocked with Wilbur’s, “You instigated a physical altercation on school grounds. Did you expect to get off scot-free? Especially considering this isn’t your first incident here.”

“But I didn’t instigate it!”

“Tommy, calm,” Wilbur's voice is a reddening fever, harsh whisper resting just under tight wrap. Tommy huffs, a glint of mixture in his gaze, slouching down in his chair and crossing his arms, shrinking into Wilbur's oversized coat.

To the dean, it probably looks like a grouchy teenager.

To Wilbur, it’s something completely different. 

The sky is shaded in dusky indigo and grey. The rain has lightened to a small drizzle, barely pattering against the metal overhang above them. Tommy slouches next to him, Wilbur’s trench coat abandoned for his own of puffy dark navy. 

Wilbur looks through shop windows as they head to the bus stop. Boxes of toys and shelves of candy, tables with dusting grandparents enjoying anniversaries, a cluster of college kids shouting and laughing. A mother and father looking ready to scream as their kids act like brats across from them.

Wilbur looks over at Tommy. His face is scrunched in a scowl, eyes ablaze with frost, crushing and harsh like that lining the sidewalk in a thin layer.

He takes a deep breath. 

“Y’know if you keep your face like that for too long, it’ll stay like that?”

Tommy sends him a look. Wilbur raises his eyebrow, mock seriousness playing in his gaze.

“The fuck was that?”

“‘m trying to act like how dad would. Is it working?”

Tommy snorts. “Nah. Sorry dude. Dad isn’t a _bitch_ like you. You just impersonated dads in general, not ours.”

“Shit, really? I’m so good at impressions though!”

Tommy rolls his eyes, dimples popping despite his frown. “You’re pretty shit.”

“Shut up, _child_.”

“Fuck off.”

Tommy's smirk quickly fades, a tight line forming on his lips. He turns to face the ground, shoulders tensing.

Wilbur frowns. 

“Hey. Talk to me,” nudges Tommy’s shoulder with his own. “What’s going on?”

“I just got suspended, bitch. You were there for it.”

Wilbur scoffs, “besides the usual. You never get too down over that anyway. Way more upset over whatever dad would do once you got home.”

“That’s just it.” Tommy shifts a little, stopping his walking. Wilbur does as well, the rain pattering above them. A steady drumbeat, tambourine rapid and repeating.

“I just… Techno left.”

Wilbur's gut churns. He swallows, “I know.”

Tommy glowers down at the damp spotted concrete below them, lips drawn and shoulders tense near his chin.

“I guess I’ve just… I mean, why? Why’d he leave? Dad, even? What kind of dad does that? Just… ditches his kids in the middle of the night, moves across the ocean, uses up all their money to immigrate to the fucking U.S, goes weeks without calling or even sending a message saying, ‘hey! I’m not dead!’, y’know?”

Wilbur does. He knows so, so fucking much.

“I thought you were happy dad called. That night he finally got to us, when we were watching that old movie he used to like—”

“I wasn’t happy! I was _relieved_! I thought he was fucking dead!”

Tommy looks pale. Wilbur slowly inhales, throat stuck mid-swallow, adams apple bobbing in the rain-soaked chill.

“I was mad too. Mad he decided to wait so long, mad he even left in the first place.”

He might be crying now, Wilbur thinks, his eyes damp in the shaded grey-blue and glistening at the waterlines with unshed salt. He’s never been a big crier—none of them have—but now, seeing heat mix with the rainwater left on his face, pooling into nothing on the soaked concrete below them—it feels more natural than anything else that's happened since that night.

Wilbur’s usually good with words, but they betray him, now. He can’t say anything, foreign sting building like mucus in the pit of his throat. His body feels foreign—not sore or in pain, sickly with medicine or fuzzy with wine and whatever Wilbur had gotten his hands on at some shitty university party. Just foreign.

He wonders what death feels like.

“I was mad at you, too, y’know,” Tommy shuffles slightly, rubbing his eyes. They act as a never ending stream, current too strong to dam up, “for being mad. You were always the closest to dad. I guess it just upset me that you didn’t care more. And all this—just the fucking—shit the school does doesn’t usually bother me but I just—why am I so upset over it now?”

Something pulls Wilbur back into his body, and he rushes forward, holding Tommy in a hug, tense and fuzzy, cold on the pads of his fingers that clench white against Tommy’s back. Tommy doesn’t reciprocate it.

“Of course I cared, you idiot.”

“You didn’t seem like it. I’m not as oblivious as you think I am.”

“I know. I—I’m sorry, Tommy. Really. You’re not dumb. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t treat you like it.”

There’s a beat of silence, followed by arms wrapping around Wilbur’s torso and clinging, shaky and frail, fingers ready to rip through the thick leather. Tommy presses his face into Wilbur's shoulder, body shaking with strain. Wilbur doesn’t press it.

“I was—I was angry, bub. I was angry because I cared,” _despite what Techno says._ Wilbur solemnly scoffs into Tommy’s hair, mind numbing under foreign heat building near his temples, dense and painful and _hot_ . He’s reminded of a glass window, of frost building on the surface with red blood and fire and mold and ‘ _you haven’t cared for a long time_ ’s.

“Fucker abandoned us.”

“He and Techno both. God. where—” Tommy scoffs, head shifting slightly, blond hair knotted with frost grazing Wilbur’s jaw, “Where even is Techno? Where the fuck did he go? He doesn’t have enough money to get to dad, does he?”

Wilbur wants to answer. Under the layers of tar and feather clogging his throat and bile building under his tongue, he wants so, _so_ badly to answer.

He doesn’t. Instead, he just clings to his brother a bit tighter, trying to ignore the pink and green itching at the backs of his eyes.

* * *

“Wilbur!”

Wibur squints down at shiny white paper. Scratched black numbers and symbols, sharp white and open blanks barely visible under dim candlelight and fuzzy glass perched along flushed nose. His knuckles ache, stiff from the tense soreness clogging from his fingertips.

“Wil—why is it so dark in here?”

Wilbur looks up. Tommy looks exhausted, face hard to make out from underneath his hair, falling over the tops of his eyes in knotted clumps. His close proximity to the candle keeping the kitchenette alight in a dim glow of train headlights doesn’t help at all, only leaving light on his bangs and casting darkened shadows over the top of his face. His lips are raw and bitten clean of skin, red potent as the smoke and yarn stretching around Wilbur’s gut. 

“Migraine. You need something?”

“Well—sort of, uh—” Tommy glances down and picks at a flake of skin on his thumb, hushing his voice. Subconscious or not, warm appreciation licks in Wilburs chest. “It’s about Tubbo.” 

He inches to stand a bit closer to Wilbur, taking the shadow-sketched hand he picked from and running it through his hair, pushing it back, making his eyes visible. They’re rimmed red and dry, strained, notebook paper balled and smoothed ten times over, messy ink notes of his irises blurred soft by the reuse. 

Wilbur sets his pen down, leaning back in his chair. The springs creak slightly at the strain of his body, however thin. “I’m listening.”

“Course you are. Everyone always does, I’m fuckin’ great,” Tommy mutters, glaring down at the ground. His faint bite of a smile quickly switches to a neutral frown, gaze hardening as he looks back up at Wilbur. 

“Right, so—Tubbo—he has a football game coming up Friday, been working really hard with the rest of the team. I’ve stopped by and watched a lot of the practices earlier this autumn, after school. It’s their first game of the year, so they need it to go well in order to make a good impression, or somethin’, but, uh—“

Wilbur raises an eyebrow, gentle. Tommy swallows at the sight and Wilbur winces with the realization, a second too late, that reminding Tommy of the men who abandoned them may not be the best way to encourage openness.

“—every game, they have someone from the marching band come up to the microphone and play a bit of the ‘school fight song’,” Tommy makes mocking quotations, expression mimicking the distaste that phrase leaves as bitter bile on the back of Wilbur’s tongue, “on whatever their instrument is. This year there was an upperclassman who was gonna play flute, Ty, but apparently he got a bad fever and is gonna be staying home.”

Tommy’s shoulders shake as he breathes, cheek briefly caving as he pulls at the inside with his teeth, resting tense fists on the armrest of Wilbur’s chair. Wilbur frowns, uncrossing his arms to rest his hand on one of the fists, running his thumb along white knuckles, bones looking ready to pop out of their sockets.

“Tubbo wanted to know—” Tommy pauses, shoulders loosening as Wilbur traces small circles into the front of his hand. His gaze briefly flickers to track the movement, “No, he doesn’t really… _I_ wanted to know, if you’d be willing to substitute for Ty. Do the solo on your guitar.”

“You want… me to play at your college football game?”

“Tubbos, technically, but.” Just as quick as it left, Tommy’s eyes move back to meet Wilbur’s, baby blue dimmed under a lack of proper light. The faint lick of candle-flame doesn't provide much, leaving a faint golden glow alongside his moving jaw, blackened eye just beginning to heal and sending sparks of gold to settle like glitter dust in his pupils.

“You really have talent, Wil, and it’s been awhile since you’ve played publicly.” Tommy rushes out, staring wide-eyed at Wilbur, who sends what he _hopes_ is a gentle expression. Tommy doesn’t seem put off. He wants to think it’s a good sign, a green flag of sorts, rather than red, but that thought leaves a tight knot in his chest, so he pushes it down. 

“Plus, none of the other marching band kids can learn the music on such a short notice. You can learn stuff like— like _that_ ,” Tommy widens his eyes for emphasis, something Wilbur didn’t know was possible until just then, with the level of beady-gazed desperation the kid had been already sending him. He moves his free hand to trace the side of Wilbur’s palm, nail scratching the skin calloused from years pressed against rough copper and wire. 

Other than maybe himself, Tommy knows more about Wilbur’s musical endeavours than anyone else. Comes with being put to bed as a baby to gentle strums of songs Wilbur learned from street performers, Wilbur mentally reasons. It’s not his fault Tommy gave more encouragement than anyone else ever could. From father to elder brother to primary school and college friend, nobody’s eyes could ever flicker alight like his baby brother’s could, practically boiling comparing to the feral cold of rain and wind leakage, or it’s sterile counterpart materialized in medicine and pills and polished tile and white, buzzing hallways.

Wilbur will… reluctantly admit, to himself and nobody else—especially not Tommy, whos still looking at him with that wide, medicinal blue, fire likely scratching at the rough ceiling tile of his skull, with how high its tips reach out from behind his eyelids—that Wilbur _may_ have been avoiding publicly playing. 

It’s not his fault the crowd has begun to blur together. Whispers of hissing wind and fading giggles making up the shadow of their cloaks and bodies, eyes swirling sockets of white and red, wisping like fat and flesh barely clinging to freshly-picked bone. They whisper, and they scream, simultaneously and yet not at all. Their judgement pools into Wilbur’s skin like a maggot burrowing under bloodied corpse skin, sending trails of goosebump and frost and wet mucus along the rusted train tracks in their wake.

It’s gross. Gross and _fucking terrifying_. Normal-Wilbur would keenly glow under such conditions, but current-Wilbur wants nothing more than to curl up and die at the mere thought—more so than he normally does, which is… a bit of a dark thought. Nonetheless.

“Tommy, I’m really not all that sure about—”

“Wil,” and Tommy says the name that tastes like foreign fruit on his tongue with such urgency, with such wet, vulnerable _sorrow_ that Wilbur stops. 

The shadows crawling under his skin with the smoke and maggots whisper in the pits of his ears. Whisper for him to run, to jolt out of that chair of screams and scratch against tile and sprint up to the rooftop, to lean over that edge and finally let himself fall like he’s been fighting against doing for months, let the wind rush through him and the shadows freely run along the air with it, dancing to a melancholic tune of red and pink and green Wilbur doubts he’d be able to understand, let alone hear under the screeching of trains and guitar strums.

But there’s something there. Something almost purposefully sewed in with Tommy’s shaking, watery tone that keeps Wilbur still. That makes him look at Tommy, _really_ look at Tommy, finding the fire has managed to wisp out from behind his eyelids and settle, intermixed alongside the spotted dust flicking like a shaky pen scratch alongside the shaded blue and gold. 

“Tubs is mad at me,” Tommy whispers out, apple bobbing as his voice threatens to break, and man, if that doesn’t make Wilbur feel guilty for ever daring to deny the kid, “For—back at lunch, fighting for him, when those assholes ruined his stuffed bee. He was in hysterics, y’know. Thought it was gone for good.” 

Tommy stops his ministrations on the side of Wilbur’s palm, moving his hand so his thumb traces stripes along the front of his hand. A weird pancaking of Tommy, Wilbur, Tommy—the way it should be. No deadbeat dads or hysteric brothers, no angry best friends or protective older siblings leaving Tommy black-and-blue.

It’s just them. But it isn’t. Because Tommy’s voice is shaking, a faint whisper hiding under the whistling in his ears, a faint dog call he can’t seem to answer, despite the Saint Bernard that lashes and bites and foams deep in his gut. Clawing nausea and a faint coppery taste to drip along his throat and chest, adding to the smoke only cleared by medicine and cold.

He grips onto Tommy’s bottom hand a bit tighter.

“But he said he doesn’t like it when—when I act like he can’t do anything himself. Hasn’t been talking to me. Ignoring my calls and refusing to look at me in P.E. or film,” Tommy frowns, and his expression is so _fucking sad_ , Wilbur knows Tommy doesn’t have to say anythng else. He could have Wilbur at his beck and call if it means he never will have that expression of heavy, rag-soaked eyes and curled lips again.

“I got the information I do have from Greyson, one of his friends on the team. Said Tubbo’s been working for this and looking forward to it for—for _weeks_ , wants it to go perfectly, and—” Tommy looks so distressed, in that moment. He pulls his top hand away to run it through his hair, tugging at his scalp, grabbing fistfuls of gold and _pulling_ , face a sudden mottle of pink and red as the pain strings like yarn and rose bloom through his shaking form, dim under the candlelight. Like a little kid trying to brush a doll's hair straight, tugging and tugging even as the head of Tommy’s sanity threatens to pop off, “I was hoping if—if I could do this one thing for him, maybe he—he wouldn’t _fucking hate me—_ ”

The chairs scratch against tile is ear-piercing compared to the silence fuzzing the walls. Wilbur scrambles over to Tommy, body hissing in complaint. He ignores the protests, the scratching deep alongside the pounding of his temples, instead opting to gingerly tug Tommy’s hand away from his scalp by the knuckles, running a calloused thumb along the bandage wrap covering them. The other lifts to smooth the clumps down, running through the hair and beginning to unknot the thin strands in a manner much more gentle than the previous harsh pop of head and yarn.

“It’s alright, bub, okay?”

“I don’t want Tubbo to hate me, Wil,” Tommy blinks drearily, the fall and lift of his eyelids slightly uneven. He leans, resting his forehead against Wilbur’s chest, soft wool suddenly feeling too tight on Wilbur’s body. He blinks at the gesture, but the watery warmth he feels at the familiarity of it keeps his teeth against his bottom lip, running his hand up through Tommy’s hair. 

“He doesn’t.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t even know Tubbo,” Tommy leans back to glower up at Wilbur. His eyes are dim, reddened streaks of blood branching from his retinas and intermixing purple in a thick storm of grey and blue. They’re as dark as the hollow walls around them—the walls that practically swallow Wilbur whole with how dark their shadows get, whispering and scratching away marrow and blood from his skull, harsh white noise too muddled to make out anything clear. Nothing clear enough to be concerned over.

“You talk about him enough. He means a lot to you, yeah? Based on how much you seem to care about him. You got suspended for the prick.”

“Don’t say that,” Tommy pulls away, nose scrunched up in irritation. A small part of Wilbur wants to coo at the sight, but he doesn’t, just moving his hand out of Tommy’s hair to rest on his shoulder, ministrations against his knuckles pausing. “He isn’t a prick. He’s Tubbo.”

“Sorry,” Wilbur absentmindedly tugs at a loose strand on the shoulder of Tommy’s t-shirt. He flicks the fuzz down onto the tile below, watching it fall with hazy, lidded unfocus, “He doesn’t hate you. If he hates you over a single argument, he isn’t worth your friendship.” 

Wilbur starts up his gentle circles once more, tracing stick figures along foggy winter glass, dripping with water and leaving mottled red along bitten down nails. “I’ve had plenty of arguments with my friends. Fundy and Minx have gotten under my skin more times than I can count.”

Tommy reaches up and grips the hand on his shoulder, staring at it with hazy blue. His gaze is foggy, dense and clouded, weary and thick. Like a peachpit buried under layers of fuzzy, green-mottled fruit. Wilbur’s fingers itch with the urge to try and pull away at the yellow and pink, to find the sun and marigold of pit hidden under it and _cling_ to it, hold it tight to his chest and push anyone who tries to take it from him in front of golden headlights, buried under fog of red and shadowed cloak’s harsh whispers and irritated groans.

“Even Niki?”

“Even Niki,” He confirms lowly, “She can be vicious when she wants to be, y’know.” 

The corners of Wilbur’s lips upturn at Tommy’s amused huff, grip on Wilbur’s lower-palm briefly tightening. His irises look grey, blue difficult to pick out even with chilled glass and wire. It tastes bitter with the harsh flame scraping against his tongue. 

“Wil, will you—” Tommy stiffens briefly, shoulders stilling as he runs his tongue along his teeth, the metal lining them. 

Wilbur sighs.

“Can you get me an acoustic translation of the music? I can probably translate from another string instrument, but not from woodwind. I’m not that good.”

Tommy tightens his jaw, looking up from the hand gripping Wilbur’s wrist to meet Wilbur’s gaze. There’s something foreign, something light, flattened and sewn deep behind the eggshells lining his eyes. “You’re serious? You’ll do it?” 

Wilbur pierces his bottom lip with pasty canines, nodding, rubbing a gentle circle into the fabric hanging over Tommy’s shoulder, “Considering you can find the music, sure.”

“You promise?” He’s serious about this, then. His eyes burn, dry and grey, pupils boiling, bubbling as the gold in them melts into liquid, a thin sheet containing the heat. It doesn’t work all that well. His face is pale, even under the warm glow of the candle, cheeks hollow and collarbones jutting from the collar of his shirt.

Thick wool is pulled over Tommy’s head. Tommy reaches up, pulling it down so his hair _just_ peaks from the thick red knit by redheaded hand. He blinks up at Wilbur, who pulls his hands back to cross over his chest, sending faint thrums to beat around jutting ribs.

“I promise, Tommy.” 

Tommy nods, a close-lipped smile blooming, lukewarm yet trusting, reassured, steady. 

“I’ll be paying the heat tomorrow. Just—try and sleep for now, okay? Grab the music and the time of the game at school tomorrow. And make sure the coach band director or whoever is in charge is okay with me doing this.”

“Bitch,” Tommy’s smile almost comically falls to a scowl, though it lacks the heat he knows the kid can draw if needed. Could have something to do with the lack of it physically present. “I hope you sleep shit. Shitty. Shittily.”

“Okay, Tommy.”

“I’m serious, dickhead.”

Wilbur sits back down in his chair, leaning forward and firmly planting his feet against the tile. He presses an elbow against his knee, resting his chin in a cupped palm and mock-pouting, “Awe. Is Tommy gwumpy? Need me to swing you a wuwwaby?”

“Fuck off,” Tommy lightly kicks Wilbur’s shin as he passes, padding out of the kitchen, footsteps fading into the dark etching along white drywall of messy ink scribbles and shitty notebook paper. 

He rolls his chair back to face the table and glances down at the paperwork strewn across it. Bills, guardianship forms, a copy of an aged missing persons flyer. The scruffy joy of a college-aged blond smirking back at him with malice. Digs under his skin and pierces it from the inside out with shiny intent. 

_(He remembers Techno scrambling through kitchen drawers and coffee-stained photo albums, eyes wild and hair a mess of hand-tugged knots, scrambling for_ something _that resembled their father. He had finally pulled a small rectangular photo out from the aged, clear plastic keeping it stuck to the page. Staticy vibrancy of age staining the original rainy chill decorating it._

_He let out a relieved noise in the back of his throat, making Wilbur jolt out of his tired daze from his place at the opposing end of their couch. Tommy’s face was a runny, mottled red, body curled against his chest and knuckles white with their grip on his sweater as he slept. As if Wilbur would disappear, should he let go. The thought left bile in the back of his mouth._

_Techno didn’t look at all apologetic as he passed the photo to Wilbur, eyebrow raised. It was in the same fashion their dad would raise his own as he watched the brothers argue over something that, looking back on it in the moment, seemed meaningless compared to the despair that washed over them in heavy, smokey waves._

_Techno had always looked the least like their dad. But in that moment, the resemblance made Wilburs grip on the teenager buried in his arms tighten, even if just for a moment. Flames burst as a harsh, veining pocket of nerves in his chest, even if they were licked out a moment later._

_Not now, Techno didn’t even do anything.)_

He scowls at the smoke and coffee-stain discolor of printers ink, digging his fingernails into his scalp. The other hand fiddles with his pen, twisting it in between fingers in a spinning spiral, the plastic ends smacking against reddened knuckles. 

Pain crawls out from the back of his mind.

He exhales, slow, sitting up and leaning back against the hard, barred wood of the chair, knobs sending spurts of charcoal soreness up his spine. He stands, chair screeching with a pained scrape, and sighs, burning nerves in his eyes dying out.

Moves to the kitchen. Pours himself another mug of lukewarm caffeine, bitter and unflavored. Not from a lack of want, mind you. 

Black and brown stains against used porcelain. He leans against the counter, ignoring the pressing urge of counter edge, sipping the bitter cold and staring into the chilled air around him.

A shiver of frost runs across his skin, a gentle breeze against untamed smoke. 

He pads over, mug in hand, to the living room, glancing at the blanket. It’s thin, worn with age and wind, billowing inward from the bottom and barely staying afloat up top.

Goosebumps crawl up pasty flesh, barely clinging to the bones underneath. 

Wilbur shivers, pours bitter gasoline from a glass bottle to mix with the caffeine, and gets back to work.

* * *

The train creeks under the weight of Tommy’s worn sneakers.

Wilbur glances up from the torn skin on his cuticles, rolling his eyes at the wide-eyed, exasperated look being sent his way, “I’ll be there, okay? Don’t worry.”

The train skids to a stop, dark smoke filtering out a broken, melted window. Wilbur watches the movement with lidded eyes, flickering to Tommy as he groans. A bead of sunlight in the dark rope keeping them hung to bone.

“I’m counting on you, okay? ‘m serious.”

“I am too. Now shoo, before you miss the stop.”

Tommy jerks up as he sees the trolley door almost abandoned now, most likely about to close. He skirts down the curb and onto the sidewalk just before cold metal snaps his neck like a depressed English boy. He swivels around to wildly wave at Wilbur through the trolley window, hand widely spread and feet stumbling to catch their weight.

His slight panic falls to horror as Wilbur holds up Tommy’s blazer by the collar, slightly wrinkled from the lump it had been left as on it’s seat.

Wilbur snorts, sticking a tongue out at Tommy as the latter runs to try and stop the trolley, to no avail.

They leave the stop through a tunnel. Wilbur smiles fondly at the thought of Tommy sat in lunch detention wearing a musty, oversized lost-and-found bin blazer. He opens his guitar case to shove the forgotten article of clothing under his instrument.

He leans back, letting red fog envelop his throat once more.

As the morning draws to noon, the sky maintains its heavy grey, swirling and sticking like smoke to the sky. It’s been raining a lot lately, chilled and cold. Wilbur hesitates before joining the fog of crowd, shifting and moving at its own accord.

His throat burns.

“Alright, you’re number eleven. Your order will be out shortly. You can wait at one of our booths until it’s ready. Next!”

Wilbur tries to drown out the fuzzy cotton of buzzed university students and worn down businessmen. The artificial warmth of golden café light bores down like gasoline fire, licking at flaky skin peeling his fingertips.

“Hey, can I get a—Wil?” 

Wilbur blinks back into the front of his mind, pounding from dull golden light that feels like a bulldozer in his wine-crashed temples.

“Fundy?”

“Wil!” Fundy perks up. Smiles, yellowed teeth clawing out from under his bottom lip. “I totally forgot you work here. Definitely wasn’t hoping to catch you for your lunch break or something. That’d be stalker behavior, yeah?”

Wilbur lets himself smile, stifling a snort. He doesn’t miss the way Fundy’s eyes, dark brown and pumpkin amber burning warmth into Wilbur’s cold blood and bones, light up at the poorly hidden laugh.

“Shame.” Wilbur rolls his eyes, gaze shifting back down to the register in front of him. “Lunch break in seven. Think you can make time in your oh-so-busy schedule?”

Fundy hums, leaning back slightly, tucking hands calloused from needle and wool into leather jacket pockets, “I’ll have to check.” The playful spark in his eyes mellows for a moment. “I’m sure I can, though. Groupchat’s been missing you.”

“I’m not even in the groupchat.”

“Would be if you got a proper phone.” Fundy mutters, lighthearted, before frowning, gazing at Wilbur with an odd glow of certainty. “Really, though. I’ll wait for you. Booth by the stage?” Fundy juts his chin over his shoulder toward the small platform ‘stage’ to the right of the bar. Nostalgia strums through his gut like a melancholy tune at the sight.

“Don’t bother with that. You remember the usual spot by the dumpsters, just wait there. Now, tell me your order before Josh sees us and docks my pay for slacking off.”

The clouds have lightened. Small slivers of fuzzy blue peak through puffs of foggy white, sun lighting the damp concrete below their feet a gentle, dotted yellow. 

Fundy’s sitting atop a dumpster, back pressed against chipped, dampened brick, cardboard mug gripped tight in reddened hand and knees folded up, tips of worn leather digging into the green plaster. Tufts of ginger-brown and silver pop out from black, pin-freckled hat, stringy and damp in the moist chill sticking to the air. 

Fundy’s gaze flickers over at him as heavy metal door slides shut, click ringing through both their ears. Scoots over, shoulders relaxing a bit as he pulls his scarf down to sip from a still-steaming cup.

Wilbur hops up onto the plastic, shifting further back and curling his legs in a loose cross in front of him, letting arms dangle in the center. His bangs peek out from the front of his beanie, leaving small teardrops of dewy salt on the curled ends and dragging over skin and eye. Puffs of thin frost gently filter from chapped, parted lips as he reaches into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a small cardboard box and red lighter.

“What happened to quitting, huh?”

He doesn’t respond at first, letting heat stain the white paper a mottled mix of sickly yellow and aged brown. Puts it to his mouth, fingers trembling as he inhales. He can feel Fundy’s gaze burning circular, heated burns into his temple, raw counterparts to the aged brown and red he knows dot his arms, burning heat so deep it makes his skin bubble like rust and yet doing nothing to combat the tendrils of frost and cold tar piercing his lungs.

Wilbur scrunches up his burning nose and squints down at his converse, white rubber dirty and aged to dusty, pale yellow and laces slightly torn, covered in dirt and ash, grey with water stains. Exhales. Watches smoke filter up to join the clouds rolling in from the distance. They don’t look too dark, he dutifully notes. Hopefully it won’t rain. He can only just contain the foreign sadness rising in his gut at the thought of that disappointed glisten in wide, blue eyes, water flattening overgrown blond hair to pasty skin.

“I gave up on that a few weeks back,” smoke leaves his mouth like small blood clots as he relaxes, trembling visibly lessening as the smoke filters through his lungs, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound concerned. Quitting's never been your thing.”

A scoff, “Yeah, I guess so. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Wilbur glances at Fundy, not bothering to move his neck as he inhales once more, flicking baby blue embers onto the cracked concrete below them. The freckling glow quickly fades into grey. It’s familiar.

“No offense. Sorry.” 

Wilbur squints at nothing as Fundy takes another sip, the gaze burning into his temple cooling.

“Just—none of us really take ‘getting better’ that seriously, I guess,” Fundy barks out a small laugh, “Remember when Niki said she was gonna try and get off of weed, for ‘Ranboos sake’?”

Wilbur quietly laughs, smoke billowing from his lips in clumps loosely tied together with thin bits of metal. “She really tried, I’ll give her that. No way was it harming Ranboo though, kid lives in the states still, doesn’t he?”

Fundy hums. “Yeah. I think she’s gonna go visit for Christmas, though."

“That’s not for awhile though, innit?”

“It’s only two months. Traveling internationally can be a bitch, so I’m not surprised she’s planning early.”

Wilbur blinks, “Shit. Really?” 

He rubs his eyes with the heel of his palm as Fundy nods, flicking a few more embers onto the concrete, watching them die out. They remind him of someone, in the back of his mind, poking and prodding under layers of purposeful ash and medicine and shitty card games, “I’m so fucking disconnected with the group, what the fuck.”

“Right. I’m gonna cut to the chase, Wil,” Fundy’s voice lowers a bit, as if talking too loud would break some code shared between giggling teenagers on apartment roof, “Where have you been?”

“Apartment. Work. Tommy’s college.”

“God—I know _that_ , dumbass,” Fundy checks Wilbur’s shoulder with his own, shuffling closer to him so their feet just graze sides. Wilbur doesn’t mind. The heat Fundy buzzes out in kinetic billows is a welcome change from the cold wrapping around his ribs. “I mean… mentally, I guess. And sort of physically. We haven’t heard from you in weeks. No calls from your home phone or—or anything. Scott said he stopped by your apartment a few times, but he didn’t get an answer.”

“I didn’t ignore him if he did. I’ve just been out a lot more.”

“Doing?” Fundy nudges him gingerly, voice soft and prompting. 

“What is this, an intervention?” Wilbur takes another inhale of smoke, ripples of grey and black washing out alongside his voice. 

“A lot of shit’s happened recently. Not sure if you want your mood dampened by it.”

“Wil,” there’s shuffling. A hand rests itself on Wilbur's shoulder opposite of Fundy, pulling him close to the side of a warm hoodie. Wilbur lets himself sink, despite having to strain his neck and upper back to do so, resting his head against the side of Fundy’s chest. “I promise you’re not dampening anything. I just—I wanna make sure you’re okay. Honest.”

“So this _is_ an intervention. Neat. Haven’t gotten one of those since, what, year twelve?” 

Wilbur nudges Fundy, smile playing on his lips. Fundy doesn’t reciprocate it. He bites the smile back down, eyes lidding.

“Nothing?”

Fundy just stares at him, silent and prompting. Probably going for encouraging.

Wilbur droops, lethargically watches embers sizzle on the paper rolled in between his fingers. His eyelids feel heavy, lead just beginning to seep from the cotton stuffed behind them. His retinas sting and his vision blurs with ocean water, salty and freckled with rocks and driftwood.

“Well. You asked,” Wilbur rests his weight against Fundy’s side, throat cracking with silent threats as he claws away at the wool clogging it.

“Techno left,” might as well rip the bandaid off quick, he supposes.

Wilbur shifts and inhales once more, body packing itself thick tar and smoke as Fundy lets out a small hum, practically a yip, high in the back of his throat, “and without him there to help balance the work we need to scrape by, especially since Phil just took _all our fucking money_ _—_ ” he glowers at his feet, smoke filtering from his lips like ash, “—I’ve had to take more jobs to support Tommy and I. Techno leaving calls trying to convince me to take Tommy away and go on a wild goose chase after our deadbeat dad isn’t really helping, either.”

“Techno… left? Left London?”

A hum, “day after that party at Ryan’s place. Left me a nice little note telling me he,” Wilbur makes mocking hand quotes with his free hand, other holding burning dangerously close to khaki-loose knee, “‘knew dad wouldn’t just abandon us, that he wasn’t a deadbeat, and he was gonna go on a chase to track him down and figure out what was going on. He left and won’t come back.’ Something like that.”

“What the hell—” Fundy breathes out, grip on Wilbur’s shoulder briefly tightening, leaving pinpricks on the space his knuckles whitened. “That doesn’t—I believe you, just doesn’t sound like something he’d do. At all.”

“Leaving his children with nothing but fifty quid and some half-filled prescriptions doesn’t sound like something Phil would do either but, hey, here we are.” Wilbur barks out a harsh laugh, spite edging each syllable, biting and hot, embers licking at the edges of runny red and pink.

“Wil, I—I’m so sorry, man.” Wilbur tosses his cigarette down onto the concrete, letting lingering dew and rain stomp out what embers remain. The harsh pinpricks of anger lingering in his throat die with it—he can feel the way his throat shifts as faint orange and yellow fade to black.

“It’s fine, just—” Wilbur coughs into his fist, Fundy rubbing light circles into the space in between his shoulder blades. His nails are sharpened and leave fading white lines against his flesh through his collared work shirt. The sharpness is oddly comforting. 

Medicine pumps into his mouth, bitter acid filling his throat and loosening the walls once more, mucus and cotton turning to vapor rather than packing his chest. He takes the inhaler from Fundy’s hands, blinking a small, appreciative glance to him. Fundy weakly smiles, patting his shoulder.

“I can’t—” another inhale, medicine filling his lungs, “I can’t help but miss them, y’know?” His voice is raspy and tight, knuckles chalk white against the plastic of his inhaler. Fundy looks sympathetic—hell, he looks _pitying_ —something which Wilbur outwardly scowls at, lips turning up in a snarl and embers reigniting in his retinas. “And I don’t need your pity. Don’t fucking look at me like that.”

Wilbur moves away from Fundy, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands hang near his shins and feet.

“I don’t pity you. Just… you can’t blame me for feeling bad. And being confused.”

Wilbur runs a hand through his bangs, letting his eye press against the heel of his palm and letting his elbow press against his knee, inhaler loosely gripped between his fingers in his opposite hand.

“I’ve known Techno and Phil since I was… what, sixteen?”

“That’s only three years,” Wilbur glowers, briefly peeking out from behind his palm to send what he hopes is a dark glower, despite the embers leaving clarifying red streaks alongside the eggshells shielding his eyes.

“You’re literally only a month older than me. Watch it,” a smile teases the edges of his lips, pointing a finger at Wilbur’s chest, “Besides. It comes with the territory of keeping me around for as long as you have.”

“You knowing my family?”

“Exactly.”

Wilbur scoffs out a small laugh, tucking his inhaler back into the pocket of his work apron. Fit of irritation mellowed, he leans back into Fundy. 

“Do you have any gum on you? Josh won’t be happy if I go back in smelling like smoke.”

“A bit of gum won’t change that,” Fundy shifts, gently pressing the worn aluminum into his palm, closing Wilbur’s fingers around it with his own, ginger, “but here. Cinnamon flavored.”

“Ew.” 

Fundy barks out a warm, honey laugh as Wilbur scrunches up his nose, scowling through his smile as cinnamon bursts under his molars. 

“Just buy mint like a normal person.”

“Boring,” Wilbur flicks the bottom of Fundy’s jaw with his finger and thumb, snickering as Fundy glares down at him, gaze flickering with warm, melded gold despite the irritation, “Besides, when have I ever been normal?”

“You’re so _quirky_ .”

“I will kill you. Fucking try me.”

Wilbur lets his smile linger, slowly chewing as he stares out onto the street in front of them. It’s active with people, ripples of salt and weight passing by in a thick haze. His retinas sting as he works to keep up with the churning of black and grey. Like a buoy in the middle of a rainstorm, abandoned and just kept afloat by ropes connected to poles, floating and alone, stranded and quiet.

Even curled into Fundy’s side, he feels like he’s been dragged kicking and screaming from those murky black and blue depths and left for dead on the glass-boiled sands.

His clothes stick to his skin, drenched in heavy murk. He’s so fucking cold. 

He leans further into Fundy’s side, suddenly wishing he hadn’t left his coat splayed out as a protective cover for his guitar case.

“You should stop by my apartment, tonight. We haven’t hung out in awhile.”

“Can’t. I promised Tommy I’d play at Tubbo’s football game at eight tonight.”

Fundy’s shoulders shift, silent in their irritation, mimicking the bugs crawling under Wilbur’s skin, silent in their pursuit yet ever-so prominent during sobriety.

“ _Tubbo’s football game_ ,” He repeats slowly, disbelief fogging each letter like the condensation lifting from his lips. “Tubbo isn’t even your brother. Hell, he isn’t even your friend. Have you even met the kid?”

“No, but—” Wilbur shuffles further into Fundy’s side, voice muffled by jacket, rough against his stinging nose. “Tubbo is important to Tommy, and Tommy means the world to me. I’d burn this fucking shithole to the ground for him. He’s the only thing really keeping me going.”

There’s a few beats of silence. The weight of his words barely spins against the back of his throat with bile and cinnamon. Hot and burning, stinging along the medicinal walls of shined marble and slick. He doesn’t regret them, not really. Phil always hated lying.

“Wil—”

“I meant it.”

“I know. I don’t care,” A hand runs through his hair, starting at the bottom of his neck and scratching at the back of his scalp, “Well, I do, but—we all have our shit. It comes and goes, yeah?”

Wilbur just hums, nodding as he hides under the touch, letting boiling smoke sink into his eyes as he closes them. “It isn’t that bad.” An attempt to cool the worried lick building in the tense fingers that run through his hair, “Just, like… small thoughts. Nothing serious.” 

“I trust you. You still have my number, right? If you ever need me to talk you out of something. Or just need to talk in general. I wasn’t joking when I said I want to make sure you’re okay. I care about you. The whole group does, Niki and Minx and Scott and CP.”

“Thanks. Glad to know my son cares for me. You’ll take care of me once I’m old and rotting, yeah?” Fundy groans, lightly tugging at the hair near Wilbur’s hairline, sharpened nails tapping against matted curls. Wilbur lets himself smile, “really, I‘m alright. The thoughts just kinda come and go.”

Fundy hums, something foreign pushing through the fog. Wilbur opens his eyes as Fundy slips down, sliding off the dumpster with a small thump of leather boots, turning on his heels to face Wilbur. His eyes glisten from under the shadow of his hat, mahogany and copper intermixing in a warm hazel, fuzzing heat onto the sides of Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur shifts slightly so his weight is semi-even along the soles of his boots, pressing into the groves of green plaster.

“Seriously. Come over after your shift today.”

He bites back the amused scoff he feels clogging the pit of his throat, staring Fundy down with wide eyes, straining his retinas as bitter air lashes against them. “Buy me—” pauses, “I was going to say ‘buy me a drink first’, but considering I just called you my son I probably shouldn’t.”

“Learn to pick a bit dude, ew,” Fundy scrunches up his nose, barking out a small, wispy laugh, smile staying even as he continues to talk, “but really. You know what I meant.”

“I can’t come over tonight, remember? Tubbo’s game? Tommy really needs me there.”

“I’m assuming you don’t have a night shift?” 

A nod, “Charlie agreed to cover for me.”

“Then you get out at six. You said the game is at eight. That’s a solid two hours. You can do both.”

“You think I have the energy for that?” Wilbur lightly cocks his head, resting his chin on one of his knees and unfolding the other, letting his leg dangle. 

Fundy balls and relaxes his hands, leaving red dents from the metal rings stuck to them, settling to sit them in his hoodie pockets and give Wilbur an assessing staredown. He takes a step back, heels threatening to stumble over the edge of the sidewalk and leave him nothing but a bloodied corpse, broken bone letting red fuzz and monochrome static pool as tar and salt on the asphalt.

“We aren’t doing anything bad, promise.” 

Wilbur frowns pitifully at the raw, heated flush of desperation on Fundy’s face. Desperation Wilbur caused due to his own chill of apathy, of exhaustion that hooks like rusted metal to his joints and _pulls_ , rope rubbing the flesh barely clinging to his bones raw, flaking to join the corpses lining the streets like salt on iced pavement.

“ _Plus_ ,” Fundy widens his eyes for emphasis, eyebrows raising and pupils swirling like charcoal. Wilbur watches Fundy pace with lidded, stinging eyes, one hand holding his mug up near his chin, the other wildly gesticulating, irises wide with flickering cinnamon and gold, “Minx has been staying at Niki’s for the past week. Tonight’s her last night here, she’s heading to Croydon on Saturday to spend time with her parents.”

“Ew. Croydon. She’s willingly going there?” Wilbur scoffs, chewing on damp, lumpy cinnamon. He reaches up to run a hand through his hair and push his bangs away from his face, blinking to adjust as his vision shifts from one eye to two. Pauses, stilling with his hand near the top of his scalp, “Minx is in the city? What about uni? Autumn break doesn’t start for Tommy until next week.”

“Her school closed early. Apparently some illness—smallpox, maybe?—was spreading through campus and they decided to shut it early to disinfect the place. She’s been doing online,” Fundy stops his pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists in front of him, breathing out a puff of laughter as Wilbur scowls, “Minx isn’t sick, don’t worry, she got tested before she left and she hasn’t shown any symptoms since. I’ve been hanging around her all week, I would’ve noticed by now.”

“Mr. Fundy Lange, well-known for his ever-prominent attentiveness. Bless your soul.” Wilbur rests his chin in his free hand, other dangling uselessly, elbows resting on his knees. Fundy rolls his eyes, smiling, eyes lidded. 

Wilbur's face falls to a scowl. He hadn’t even realized he was smiling, “I swear to god if that bitch gets me ill, I am going to rip her piercings out of her face and shove them up her _fucking_ eye sockets—”

Fundy barks out a harsh laugh, resting his forearms, crossed, on the dumpster lid near Wilbur’s shoes and crossing one foot over the other, pressing leather boot tip against the concrete. His head tilts back, harsh breaths of laughter leaving billows of smoke to fade into the darkening clouds rolling over them, a thick blanket of cigarette-burnt wool, scraping bone-tight skin raw. 

Wilbur bites back the smile threatening to pull at his cheeks as Fundy’s eyes uncrease. He lowers his chin to hover over his arms, gaze tracking Wilbur from his peripheral. Wilbur pulls the sleeves of his wrinkled button-up a bit farther to swallow his wrists, jutting from his skin like rusted metal.

“You said ‘if Minx gets you ill’,” Fundy raises his eyebrows slightly, eyes flicked with a bright glint, “does that mean?”

Wilbur pulls his knees a bit closer to his chest, burying himself in the faint heat that burrows under the steady pump of his heart at the movement. The blood rush is nice. A small part of him is tempted to push the bones jutting from his joints just a _bit_ further, let the sharp metal pierce his skin and leave hot crimson dribble to pool down his arms, anything to warm the frost caking him. 

“I could be referring to you. You _have_ been around Minx all week, you’d be contagious.”

Fundy frowns. Wilbur sighs, lowering his head so it presses heavy against the sharpened bones of his knees, “ _just_ until seven. And I’m not taking or drinking anything.” 

Fundy jolts, eyes widening and eyebrows fully raising, top halves hidden by the ginger and cinnamon pressed over his face by wire and felt, “You’re serious?”

“Don’t interrogate me or else I’ll change my mind.”

Fundy stands fully, then, hands lingering on the dumpster for a moment. He’s thinking—when you know someone for years like Wilbur has Fundy, it gets easier to pick up the loose string plucked from the knotting stuffing his head. The movement of his lips as he chews on the inside of his cheek, the subtle furrow of brows and scrunch of nose. All tells to the back-and-forth going on in Fundy’s head that Wilbur can almost make out in his own, scratching at his temples and the dense tension at the pit of his throat.

“Right. Do you—I can wait for you?”

“It’s only noon. I have another five-and-a-half hours.”

“Do you want me to run by here at five? Six?”

“You haven’t moved, yeah? I can make it there on my own.”

“Okay! Okay.” Fundy lifts his hand, moving a bit above his hip before pausing, fingers shifting uselessly around nothing like corpse bones. His gaze flickers to Wilbur and, before Wilbur can process it, Fundy wraps his hand around one of Wilbur’s, guiding him down to the ground. Wilbur lets him, limp, scratching switching to scrabbling as confusing churns like nausea in the stomach of the yarn.

“Fundy, what—”

An arm wraps around his middle, tugging him forward. He stumbles, briefly, feet tripping over the yarn twisting around his ankles, before falling into Fundy, arms moving on instinct to snug around Fundy’s shoulders, one clenching uselessly on the thick hoodie and the other loosely curled in the nape of Fundy’s neck.

“We’ve missed you, man, really. _I’ve_ missed you.” Fundy’s jaw moves from where it’s pressed against his shoulder, the difference of the boney metal lining their bodies suddenly more prominent than ever. Where pipes jut from Wilbur like knives, razors piercing skin in methodic lines, Fundy’s are but a bump, scars healed over, nothing but praised faint marks.

Wilbur blinks down at the mess of thin hair and black felt pressing into him, briefly tightening his grip in hopeful comfort.

“It’s been too long without my best friend.”

The embrace ends as quickly as it started. Fundy’s hand lingers on his side, just for a moment, before it pulls back, moving cardboard cup back-and-forth between his hands, gaze locked on the shifting heat.

“I—I’ll see you at Niki’s, then?”

The idea of ditching, however unlikely the idea was as it stacked in the pit of his skull, topples, then. “Only two hours.”

“Only two hours,” Fundy confirms.

* * *

The light flickers. 

The brief shadows it cuts through the hallway swallow Wilbur as he enters the building. The dark residual leeches of ebony left in its wake curl under his skin with the maggots and smoke, thin carpet of dark green and even darker green stains he’s never been able to identify mocking him as he squints.

The buzz of the light adds to that warming his chest, a welcome shift from the weight of tire and horn bouncing along the street outside. It’s a subtle thrum, spreading around his bones and and the harsh chill numbing the tips of his ears, his nose and lips and painted corners of his eyes, vinyl grained with salt.

His feet catch on the top of one of the steps, nearly sending him toppling into the ink pooling below his soles. He scowls down at the plaster and carpet, hand shaking white from its grip on metal handrail, the other pressing by the heel uselessly on his knee. 

His body narrowly avoiding harsh tumble was nothing but a whisper in his head, flickering in with the bubbling daze of lethargy, but based on the quick thudding of footsteps curling in a sharp pattern above him, that isn’t much to go off of. 

He looks up to shout profanities at the noise that isn’t doing anything good for the harsh, drunken pound against his eyes, instead breathing out a quiet ‘fuck’, dread pooling like tar in his gut at the rows of stairs to traverse piled above him.

His body crawls with the harsh claws of the cold, edges getting stuck on his skin and pulling, ripping down, leaving open paper of red and white in their wake. The wounds ache, per usual—but now, seeing that swift-moving head of gold and red, the razor-trailed marks ease by a faint margain, however slight. 

Blood and painful heat thrum alongside the steady beat of his heart as his gaze meets that of medicine.

He stumbles as his body is met with another, smaller and thinner and desperate, chilled summer winds carrying the lingering taste of salt and sweat and honey. He imagines the embrace is what beaches are like. He wouldn’t know.

“Wilbur, you _asshole_ , I was worried I was gonna get a hospital call. Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.”

Tommy’s voice is shaky, something deep and shifting hidden under the popping of flames and smoke filling his lungs. Something warm—no, not just warm—something dense and white-hot fills his lungs with water and ash, wrist-flicks of gold dotted around haphazardly like fizzing boils.

Tommy lets Wilbur lean his weight on him as he leads him up the stairs, one arm wrapped around his middle, keeping him from toppling over and breaking his nose on the sharp plaster below them. It almost looks welcoming, in a fucked up way. The thought of packed pain, sore and dense, pressing between his eyes and leaving a dark paint of red and purple. Tommy’s tense grip on his side keeps his face an unmarked, blank canvas of white, however. Wilbur wants to shout at him for keeping his creativity down.

A part of him simmers at that. Simmers at whoever made his baby brother’s eyebrows furrow in such a _tense_ and focused manner, lips trembling, eyes puffy and reddened, hair pushed around haphazardly and undeniable _anger_ flooring the haze of smoke and ash layering his gaze.

 _It’s because of you_ , a friendly whisper spins in his head. The edges fizz with hot steam and heat, everywhere and nowhere. Wilbur’s half-convinced it’s the result of some vodka-pissed haze, unable to piece together why Tommy would be angry with _him_ , of all people—his older brother, his guardian, the grass fed by his sunshine. The lack of focus, fingers scrambling for some sort of purchase to no avail, blurs the muddled shadows and colors around him, a haze of ashy grey and vomit.

And then he’s sucked into the cold. 

Their door shuts with a faint creak, snap, thud. Tommy lets go of Wilbur to click shut the locks lining the door like some paranoia-induced tier list, increasing in tightness with each snap of rusted gold. Wilbur stumbles for a moment to get his weight steady, hands stretched with the palms facing the floor. He thankfully doesn’t have to for long, tight, white-knuckled fists gripping handfuls of his rumpled work shirt.

“Thanks, bubba,” his words are slurred like the streaks of paint around him, dense pit stuck sticky in the back of his throat leaving his voice nothing but a sloppy mumble, “‘m really tired, I think—”

His back cracks against the door. 

His eyes sting with a thin layer of burn near the upper eyelids, stinging alongside the vodka previously buried in his throat, ready to come back up from its place churning in his gut. His hands move wildly, scrambling for purchase, deciding to settle with wrapping around the wrists of the hands gripping his shirt. 

The anger burning in Tommy’s eyes is as white-hot as his knuckles, tense from their grip on Wilbur’s work collar. Wilbur frowns, pain pounding from all sides of his head—where it was previously just a migraine building at his temples, the slam against the door just left the back sore as well, and did nothing to ease the frontal pain. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were a bruise sitting under his hair, hidden under the mud and tree roots.

“Where the _fuck_ were you,” Tommy’s voice is low gravel, shaky and hot. His eyes burn with something fiery, flickering in a way that reminds Wilbur of that morning in their coffee-stained kitchenette, filled with crumbling toast and overdue juice and a burning russet gaze, judgement pooling from every darkening fleck of his irises, shaded like the smoke and pepper stuck behind his eyes yet filled with a sharp clarity Wilbur’s never could be.

“What?” Wilbur squints, wanting nothing more than to push Tommy down and pass out on his sweat-stained mattress and oversized boxspring. His head pounds, his eyes sting and his gut churns with molasses-thick nausea. He feels like _shit_ —based on the hurt hiding behind rage in Tommy’s gaze, he probably is. “Where… I’m sorry, where was I supposed to be?”

“The fucking game! The football game. You promised, you fucking promised, you—” Tommy’s glare loosens, albeit slightly, watery hopelessness edging in his waterline. “You promised me. You said, ‘Tommy Innis Pandel, I promise with all my heart I’ll help you get your best friend Tubbo back in your good graces.’ The fuck happened to that, huh?”

“You don’t play football. You’ve never played sports. Right?” Wilbur frowns. “No, I’m right. I think.”

“Fucking—It was Tubbo’s game! Ty falling ill, the team needing someone to play a fucking school song on a short notice, you promising, _promising_ , you’d be there? Do you not remember any of it? You promised, you fucking promised! You never break your promises! You…” The cold, wet sorrow fills his gaze then, oddly fitting for the dark ocean of blue chilling Wilbur’s carved out chest, “You promised.”

“Bubba, I—”

“No, don’t you fucking dare. You don’t have the fucking right to call me that.” 

Tommy lets go of Wilbur’s shirt. Wilbur stumbles, briefly, leaning his weight on the door as his legs shake like damp branches in the wind. Tommys hands slowly fall to his sides, limp, suddenly looking so much smaller, so much more downtrodden than the boy screaming in his face, rage russet and intermixing with the cold blue of a father long washed away.

“Tommy. There’s no—it was just a school song, yeah? Surely Tubbo didn’t care that much.”

“That’s not the point!” Tommy crosses his arms over his chest, a hug, adams apple bobbing and eyes watery, “You promised me, Wilbur. You’re never supposed to break your promises. Neither of us are.”

“I said that when we were fucking kids, Tommy!” 

Wilbur flares up suddenly. His legs shake as he forces his weight onto them, but he refuses to topple, not now, not when Tommy is looking up at him with wide eyes and curled back lips, loosely drawn in a scowl, edges of watery irises smearing warm red and brown, water suddenly charred and dirtied by the carelessness of those who depend on it. 

“We were _kids_. Promises were small. ‘Oh, Tommy, I pwomise I won’ steaw your favowite stuffed cow today! Pinkie pwomise’.” Wilbur glares at Tommy, a mocking smile on his face, clasping his hands in front of himself in a mock prayer. “‘I pinkie pwomise’,” his smile falls, drawn tight into a snarl, “an’ you no ‘m sewious wen I _pinkie pwomise’_.”

“Stop it,” Wilbur vaguely recognizes Tommy covering his ears with the heels of his palms, fingers tugging at the tufts of thin blond hair matted to his temples. He can’t fully process it through the blur of white, vodka and coke and _anger_ , building after weeks of staying caged deep in his gut.

“We aren’t kids anymore, Tommy!” Wilbur wildly gesticulates as he talks, hands flailing near his chest, ready to duck down should a sore pain come flying down. “Hate to break it to you, but we’re not fucking kids. You’re sixteen. You need to fucking grow up! You can’t expect everything to be okay because I fucking—what, I ‘promised’? Get a grip!” Wilbur likes to imagine he stands to his full height, then, that he left a dark shadow stretching over him, picking at the skin barely hanging on his bones.

“I need to cling to promises, Wilbur! Because if I don’t have promises, then what…” Tommy trails off, staring with wide eyes and flushed cheeks at the carpet below them. Wilbur can practically trace the smoke hazing his vision, a sickly brown and yellow, the colors of rot and dirt and rust and fat, flayed from pasty skin and left torn open on the tube line. “If I can’t count on promises, then what do I have to count on?”

Tommy continues on, rambling, ignoring the harsh intakes of breath Wilbur scrambles for as he tries to butt in, failing to find purchase on the breaks in Tommy’s bile. 

“Because I can’t—I can’t count on anybody. Dad left to move across the fucking ocean, didn’t leave us with any money of our own. Techno left to go chase after him—yeah, I fucking heard that conversation, I heard you yelling at him on the phone, Wilbur! I’m not stupid! I’m not,” Tommy stares up at him, eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. His shoulders are shaking. “I’m not stupid. I know you think I am, Techno and dad and Tub’ and the fucking—the fucking teachers, the dean. Everyone thinks I’m an idiot, but I’m not. I’m not.”

“You’re not an idiot?” Wilbur runs his hand through his fringe, tugging in an attempt to relieve the drip of mucus and salt blurring the corners of his vision, “Then start fucking acting like it. You can’t even keep your best friend from leaving you. Doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

“He didn’t leave me!” And the noise is shrill. It’s high, shaking through Wilbur's chest like a numbed spike of thorns and hasitally torn metal, winding him and just adding to the pain in his temples. 

Tommy’s screaming.

“He didn’t! Tubbo didn’t _fucking_ leave me! Wilbur did!”

Wilbur blinks.

“You’re not Wilbur. Wilbur’s _dead_ , my big brother’s dead and it’s all your _fucking_ fault!”

The shab below his feet feels solid, suddenly. The smoke parts, briefly, leaving nothing but trailing blur and mist in its shadow.

“My brother isn’t… he isn’t you.” Tommy’s shoulders heave. He lowers his hands, letting them fall limply at his sides, taking a few stumbling steps back when Wilbur briefly raises his hand. He clenches and drops it, frowning. 

“You could never compare to my brother. Wilbur, he—” Tommy curls tighter into himself, bowing his head so his face is covered by the overgrown mop of blond matted to his scalp. Wilbur can still see the pooling of mopwater on his chin, dampening the school hallway of their apartment below them, “Wilbur’s… he’s always been my favorite.”

Wilbur swallows. 

“He would always wear these—these oversized fucking jumpers, god they looked so stupid. And he had these glasses made of golden frame and thin glass, they always seemed so useless compared to Techno’s, but Wilbur was practically blind without those things, constantly pushing them up against his nose with his middle finger. He liked to subtly do it when he saw kids from our school, before he had to go to college. Quietly flip them off without them knowing, without risking getting me beat up. And—” 

Tommy’s face lifts just enough for Wilbur to see the red burn of his nose, and _oh_ , he’s sobbing now, voice barely a whisper yet deafening, even among the scratching in his skull. 

“And there was this one time, after school in year three or some shit. I was telling Wilbur about this animal Mr. Albi brought up mid-lecture, anteaters. And he was so fuckin’ pissed, Techno had to physically hold him back to keep him from storming into the building and shouting at my teacher for daring to inform me of that ‘disgusting fucking animal’. He wouldn’t stop ranting about it while waiting for the train.”

Tommy looks up, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm and smiling, dark and numbing.

“And he… he had this guitar. Was really good with it, too. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d go to his room and tug on his sleeve, and he’d let me crawl into bed with him since he didn’t want our dad to hear us, and he'd sit there and play songs, a cover or something he was working on. Sometimes he’d sing, sometimes he wouldn’t, but I’d always fall asleep to it. And he’d never—he never left.”

“Until he did.”

Tommy looks up at him, face streaked with salt that cut through the cold mottle of sweat stuck to his skin. His eyes are wide and his fringe sticks to his forehead.

He looks pathetic. He’s sixteen, for fucks sake. He doesn’t have the right to be this childish. Wilbur didn’t. Techno didn’t. Why should he. Why should Tommy be any different?

“Your ‘brother’ is fucking _gone_. He grew up. _I_ grew up.”

Wilbur crosses his arms, salt forming in his retinas from how hard the pain throbs in his forehead. 

“Maybe you should try it. Who knows, Tubbo might actually like you if you weren’t so fucking immature.” Wilbur snarls, shaking as he takes a step forward to close in on Tommy. “You think having me play some stupid fucking school anthem was gonna make him like you? You really thought that? Having _me_ do something for Tubbo won’t change the fact you’re a snotty fucking child. I don’t blame him for leaving you.”

Tommy looks stricken. Wilbur can’t find it in him, through the haze of smoke and fuzzy vodka, to feel bad. Kid had to learn, and if Wilbur has to carve his chest out into an empty, damp cavern that mimics his own with his bare hands, then so be it. 

Wilbur won’t get the chance to dig his nails into Tommy for a while, based on the familiar flicker he can see in Tommy’s eyes as he passes in a towering stumble. 

In the morning, he’ll regret this. In the morning, if he can remember, he’ll regret every word that slipped from his gut like some chewed up slug. He’ll want to take it all back, he knows. He knows he won’t mean any of it. He knows he’ll hate himself for ever daring to breathe wrong in Tommy’s direction, to glower down at him with such fuzzy, drunken _rage_ and dare think he was in the right. He knows. He knows.

But for now, he’s tired. He’s so fucking tired, and so fucking cold.

* * *

As faint white lines of light stretch across the room, Wilbur can hazily make out a figure. Blond hair an untamed mess, baggy green hoodie and bare feet, kneeled over something on the opposing side of the room.

“Is Techno sick?”

Wilbur’s voice throbs. Everything throbs, a deep-buried ache of flames drying his throat and mouth, stuffing his eyes with dark cotton. He presses a bit further into a damp soft below him, ignoring the salt it leaves behind.

Stilling, followed by a head turn. Blue eyes meet his own, gentle and paternal. Restrained. _Techno must be sick, then. Dad’s hiding his worry._

His dad says something, then, but Wilbur doesn’t process it, falling back into the dark feeling safer than he has in weeks.

Vaguely, a dot of black in the distance, a hand tugs his bangs away from his forehead, easing the sticky discomfort pasting his skin.

Something is said, but he doesn’t process it.

The second time Wilbur wakes up, it’s bright. Fully bright. Must be noon.

He groans, pulling his thin sheet, damp with salt, up over his head, curling up. The pain thrums like harsh, prickling heat in the pit of his forehead, edging into his temples more with each second he spends aware. 

He can’t stay under here forever. People need him. Tommy needs him.

He briefly cracks his bones from under the sheet. Fingers, elbows, shoulders, neck, back. The gentle pops and snaps ease the tensions resting heavy around the bones of his shoulders, a thick wrap of damp wool and fat.

He turns over to face the window, closing his eyes and moving his head out of the blanket. Swallows down a whine at the light through his eyelids, shuffling back under and repeating the process a few times until the pain is to a manageable level. 

He rolls onto his back and opens his eyes. The sharp soreness burns back his retinas and makes him blink a few times as he adjusts, rubbing the fire out with his top row of knuckles.

He’s greeted by water stains once more. Sat centered on the end table is a half-drank water bottle and a singular white tablet. The scene feels oddly familiar, albeit warmer, sticker. Lonelier.

The water eases his throat’s soreness, but it still feels dry, somehow.

His room is empty. Tommy’s bed is missing its blanket, mattress somehow seeming cold, even from a distance. Probably the hangover. He always feels cold after drinking. And working. And sleeping. He’s been cold a lot, recently.

The hallway is empty, too, bathroom door already ajar. Something about the room feels foreign, misplaced, as if someone came in overnight and replaced everything with an exact copy. It’s nothing noticeable, nothing meaningful, but unnerving all the same.

The rest of the apartment is the same way—the rooms he pads through on his way to the kitchen, anyway. He narrowly avoids Phil and Tommy’s room, feeling the now empty—spare for a bedframe and dusting feather collection—bedroom’s weighted boot grind down on the thin bones keeping him afloat, leaving nothing but white dust and blood in their footprint.

Wilbur manages to find a nearly-full box of plain wheat cereal, but nausea churns in his gut at the thought of _anything_ , really, so he just leaves it open on the counter. Techno’ll probably take care of it.

He isn’t too worried about the apartment’s lack of thundering footsteps and half-scream laughs. Tommy’s probably gone off to a friends house, like he does most weekends, to Wilbur’s silent glee. The loudness that comes with having Tommy around and the pounding vodka-and-whatever-Minx-coaxed-him-into-doing don’t tend to mix super well.

He decides to do the laundry. He can’t seem to find many of Tommy’s clothes, much to his quiet irritation. He’ll have to do a second load before school Monday.

By six, Wilbur heats up soup. He isn’t worried. Tommy’s probably staying the night. It’s a Saturday, after all. He might’ve even managed to apologize to Tubbo.

Wilbur needs to apologize, still, he thinks with a frown. While he doesn’t disagree with drunk-Wilbur’s—drunkbur’s?—intentions, per say, he probably took it too far. Tommy doesn’t deserve to have Wilbur's insecurities and trauma projected onto him like that. He isn’t some aged black-and-white TV screen, he’s a person, for fucks sake.

By the time he passes out in Phil’s bed, he isn’t worried. By noon the next morning, he isn’t worried, nosir, not Wilbur.

By the time the sun’s setting, he’s calling all of Tommy's friend’s parents, _calmly_ asking for Tommy to be sent home, not even a hint of hysteria managing to crawl through the stitching edging his voice. 

Eryn’s parents haven’t seen him. 

Jack’s parents ask if he might be at Tubbo’s house. 

Eret picks up after three tries to yell at him which, fair, only to soften at the absolute lack of fear in Wilbur’s voice to say they haven’t heard from Tommy since before his suspension. 

By midnight, he’s having a panic attack on the kitchen floor. 

By eight the next morning, he knows.

His last brother, his last relative, last drop of blood, is gone. 

Blood is hot, it boils and sizzles on his skin, but it's gone. 

And he’s cold. So fucking cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey its been awhile huh? mental illness go brrrrrr
> 
> anyway heres a new chapter. extra long to make up for lost time. have fun
> 
> oh also i want to kinda sorta dedicate this chapter to my friend albi, hes from london and has been really helpful with getting technical stuff down in my notes since im from the us. also theyr like supportive and cool n stuff ig . theyre british though so :// /j

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter at [@wilbursand](https://twitter.com/wilbursand) or [@W1LBURC01N](https://twitter.com/W1LBURC01N)
> 
> asthma makes you boring [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0rnQ9mqdshR9qtSfEywjzM?si=NWkU0qrxQFySAc7OmpfWmw)
> 
> i wanted to write a small thing to celebrate your city gave me asthma dropping <3


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